L
ess than a year after announcing its inten-
tion to invest more resources into their
on-highway vocational trucks, Caterpil-
lar has decided to pull the plug on their
entire lineup. Cat will no longer be taking
orders for their CT660, CT680, and CT681 trucks, but
say they will still provide full customer support for the
trucks already sold.
It is estimated that around 70 jobs will be impacted
by this decision, and the first round of staff cuts began
last month. Commenting about the decision, Ramin
Younessi, Cat's vice president of Industrial Power Sys-
tems, said that, "Remaining a viable competitor in this
market would require significant additional investment
to develop and launch a complete portfolio of trucks,
and upon an updated review, we determined there
wasn't a sufficient market opportunity to justify the
investment."
Cat launched its first on-highway vocational truck
in 2011 through a partnership with Navistar. How-
ever, that partnership ended abruptly in July of 2015
(shortly after the unveiling of the CT680), when Cat
announced plans to end the partnership and take
over the design and build phases in-house. This was
EquipmentWorld.com | April 2016
11
reporter
|
by Lucas Stewart
|
Lucas Stewart@randallreilly.com
Cat cuts vocational truck line
(continued on page 12)
Shortly after last year's unveiling of the CT680 (seen above),
Cat ended it's partnership with Navistar, one in a series of
divestment decisions terminating in the discontinuation of the
entire vocational truck product line in late February.
