Less than a year after announcing plans to more fully commit to the business by building its own trucks, Caterpillar this morning announced it will scrap its on-highway vocational truck lineup entirely.
Cat will cease taking orders for the CT660, CT680 and CT681 work trucks immediately but will continue to offer customer support for trucks already on the road.
An estimated 70 jobs will be impacted by the move, Cat says, with staff reductions beginning in March and taking place “over a period of time.”
“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 was not a sufficient market opportunity to justify the investment,” said Ramin Younessi, vice president of Cat’s Industrial Power Systems Division.
The end of the on-highway lineup comes as the latest cut in the company’s ongoing cost reduction plan.
Designed to slash $1.5 billion in costs over the next few years, the plan has already seen the elimination of 5,000 jobs, the closure of several facilities and the consolidation of the company’s mining businesses and its Electric and Marine Power businesses.
Through a partnership with Navistar, Cat launched its first on-highway vocational truck in 2011. In July 2015, just a few months removed from the introduction of the CT680, Cat announced plans to end that six-year partnership with Navistar and take over both the design and build phases of its on-highway trucks.
