Rush Enterprises Inc (RUSHB) 2025 Q1 法說會逐字稿

Thank you for standing by. My name is Janice, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Rush Enterprises Inc report first quarter 2025 earnings results.(Operator Instructions) I would like to turn the call over now to Mr. Rusty Rush, Chairman, CEO and President. Please go ahead.

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to our first quarter of 2025 earnings call. With me on the call this morning is Jason Wilder, Chief Operating Officer; Steve Keller, Chief Financial Officer; Jay Hazelwood, Vice President Controller; and Michael Goldstone, Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Corporate Secretary. Before we begin, Steve will say a few words regarding forward-looking statements.

Certain statements we will make today are considered forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 because these statements include risk and uncertainties, our actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.

Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements include but are not limited to those discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year into December 31, 2024 and our other filings of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

As we stated in our news release yesterday, in the first quarter, we achieved revenues of $1.85 billion, in net income of $60.3 million or $0.73 per diluted share. We remain committed to returning value to our shareholders. So I'm proud to announce that our Board of Directors has again declared a cash dividend of $0.18 per common share for the quarter.

The business environment in the first quarter was difficult to say the least. The industry continues to struggle with the freight recession, economic uncertainty, growing concerns around US trade policies and tariffs, and future and the future of emissions regulations. These factors caused a slowdown in customer activity, particularly in the class eight over the road segment.

Truck sales to Class 8 customers were weaker as we began the year. However, thanks to our continued focus on strategic initiatives and our diversified customer base, we managed to outperform the broader market in the first quarter, primarily due to strong sales to the vocational and public sector customers.

In the medium duty truck sales market, while the overall market was down, our unique ready to roll inventory program was particularly effective, and again, we outperformed the industry with steady class four through seven sales in the quarter.

From a used truck perspective, we saw a typical seasonal pattern, slower sales in January and February, but a good pickup in March, giving a sequential growth from the fourth quarter. With respect to our aftermarket results, our parts, service, and body shop revenues were $619 million in the quarter, down 4.6% compared to last year. Our absorption ratio was 128.6% compared to 130.1 in the quarter Q1 of 2024, but still very strong.

Despite tough market conditions, we experienced a slight improvement in aftermarket sales revenues compared to the fourth quarter of last year, with demand from our public sector, vocational and medium duty leasing customers remaining steady and sales to the energy sector beginning to pick up. We also expanded our aftermarket sales force in the first quarter, which helped us provide an even higher level of service to our customers going forward.

All things considered, operations in the first quarter. Looking ahead, we expect to see some improvement in aftermarket revenues in Q2. We added service technicians during the first quarter, which will allow us to decrease customer dwell time going forward. We also continue to optimize our parts delivery routes and improve our call centre operations, which helped us serve more customers efficiently.

With respect to the second half of the year, we are actively monitoring the supply chain and the impact that proposed tariffs may have on parts availability and pricing. We believe that we are well positioned with our parts inventory to mitigate the effects of any potential supply chain disruptions.

The Class 8 new truck sales market continues to face challenges. ACT Research says that US and Canadian retail truck sales totalled 57,946 in the first quarter, down 9% year over year. By comparison, we were down 7.8%, selling 3,222 new Class 8 trucks and accounting for 6.1% of the total US market and 1.1% of the new Class eight 8 in Canada.

While this was a tough quarter, I'm pleased that we outperformed the market. Looking ahead at Q2 and the back half of the year, ACT Research revised its US and Canadian Class 8 sales forecast downward to 2,34,600 units in 2025, a 14.7% decline compared to last year. However, we do anticipate a slight improvement in Class 8 sales in the second quarter due to the timing of some fleet deliveries.

At this point, there's too much market uncertainty to predict what demand will look like in the second half for our over the road customers, but we remain optimistic about demand from our vocational and public sector customers throughout 2025.

In medium duty sales, the overall market declined 3.5% in the first quarter, but our performance remains stable, and we sold 3,329 new Class 4 through seven trucks, outpacing the market and increasing our market share to 5.6% of the US Class 4 through seven market and 3.1% of the Canadian Class 5 to Class 7 Canadian market.

ACT research forecasting US and Canadian sales of Class 4 to Class 7 trucks to be 2,54,000 or 50 in 2025, down 7.2% compared to last year. Going forward, we expect customers to be cautious, replacing vehicles rather than expanding their fleet, but our strategic approach to stocking work-ready vehicles should allow us to meet customer needs when and where they need vehicles, and we expect to continue to outperform the market this year.

We sold 1,769 used trucks in the first quarter, down 2.7% compared to 2024. As of now, demand remains soft and tariffs haven't yet affected huge truck price, but we've been proactive in increasing inventories slightly in preparation for the spring and summer selling season, and we believe our stock levels are where they need to be to meet customer needs.

Our rush truck leasing division delivers solid results again in the first quarter. Leasing and rental revenue increased 2.3% compared to Q1 of 2024 and total $90 million for the quarter. Rental revenue is down just slightly year over year due to lower utilization rates, but full-service leasing continues to perform well as we put additional vehicles into service. I'm confident that our leasing and rental business will stay strong throughout the year.

While we face our share of challenges in the first quarter, I'm proud of how our team has navigated the uncertainty that is currently impacting the commercial vehicle industry. As I said in the news release, what remains unclear for us and for the industry as a whole is how the second half of the year is going to play out.

The ongoing concerns around tariffs, their impact on the economy, and our current emission regulations may be modified for making some customers hesitant to move forward with vehicle purchasing decisions. That said, I'm confident in our position as we navigate these challenges, and I believe our dealer network, strong relationships with customers and manufacturers and our broad product offerings will allow us to respond quickly as these policies take shape.

Before I close, I want to take a moment to thank our employees. The first quarter of 2025 has been tough, but our team has shown incredible resilience. They work tirelessly to help customers through certain, through these uncertain times while keeping our long-term goals in sight and continuing to manage expenses.

Their dedication directly contributed to our performance this quarter, and I am extremely grateful for their efforts. And with that, I'll take your questions.

(Operator Instructions) Daniel Imbro, Stephens.

Yeah. Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for checking the questions.

Good morning, Dan.

Rusty, obviously a lot of moving pieces out there. Maybe we'll just start on the demand backdrop. Exactly. Can you talk about maybe how new unit sales trended through the quarter maybe here into April? We've seen a lot of the larger fleets lowering their cap exporters.

I know those aren't always your customers, but are your customers behaving in a similar way, kind of what are your customers telling you about their planned expenditures for the rest of the year?

Well, I think, I'm, we're taking the approach that hopefully as we get to the back half of the year it'll be somewhat similar to what Q2 was, right? With these ever moving tariffs that are going on besides business being rough, right?

I mean, you've seen the earnings releases that have come out from all the carriers, right, and we do business with those carriers, not a lot of them, not all of them by any stretch, but they are a component of what we do. So you know that the tariff bouncing around has made it very difficult.

If you'd come to me 60 days ago, I would have said the same thing about Q2 that I'm telling you about the back half of the year, okay? But once we got a little clarity, when I say clarity, we got clarity like 60, 90 days out, but we don't have clarity throughout the whole year, and that's the toughest thing we're dealing with right?

So I would have said, oh boy, I'm really concerned about Q2. As I mentioned in there, we expect deliveries to be slightly up, not dramatically, but slightly ahead of what Class A deliveries were in Q1. So I mean, it's just those uncertainties, Daniel. I mean, it's like you said, a lot of people, I know people, I don't, I'm not going to name names, but I know people that have shut off total bike for the back half of the year, and it's understood that it's just really difficult.

I don't want to give you a, so I'm hoping the same thing happens with Q3 and Q4. It's like you've heard me use this phrase a few times over the last year or so it's hand to mouth, baby, and, but it's not something we're not used to. I would tell you that backlogs. The OEMs we deal with are not full for Q2 still.

There are still slots available in June. So, as you can see, it's hard to put your arms around, where Q3s could be when you still got slots available in Q2. Not a whole lot, but there are some, slots that are available in Q2, and it's, we won't, we don't, it's very difficult to price right now, because tariffs just came up again last week. They're being relooked at again. I mean, we still don't have certainty around the emissions, okay.

You saw that the house maybe yesterday, passed a bill is that housing is this, as the federal government's going back and forth with car out in California. We're going to see how that all plays out as we still have, we do not have established emissions and we have them, but they're under siege right now, right or wrong, for January 1 to '27, right? So, I expect those to change. I don't have the detail. I'm not here. I'm going to project on what that will.

Well, I will change, but with the current administration that's in it right now, there's no question it's going to change and it's, and it should change but all these uncertainties just create. It's hard to run a business living in an uncertain world like that. So, it may be this way for a while.

Okay, until things smooth out, and I can't tell you when that is. I think there's another, I don't think we'll get any on the emissions side. I think we're still 45 days or so away from getting more clarity. I know the bill was going to be going to the House as we try to come up with a solution that makes sense, not the one that's in place currently, which does not make sense.

And the tariff thing, like I said, they're relook at it again as of last week. So, I mean, I think we're going to see us operating in these short windows. I don't think you're going to see these big backlogs out through the rest of the year. And if you do, if you're counting on backlogs in the fourth quarter being worth the paper they're written on, good luck, because things change quickly right now.

So, I think there will be some, demand, but I'm in luck with what act said when it comes to. They're off around 15%. I'll take that right now, to be honest with you, for the year, as I look out there and see, I'm not, and I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here about it, but it's just a real, a reality of what we're dealing with.

But I think you see that, we were still able to put out a pretty good border given everything we're dealing with and I would hope that we'll be able to continue to operate. Look, let's go back. We don't talk about Russia in particular. I know I'm rambling on, but here we go.

Let's go back to 2020, right? Let's go back to COVID. Go look at the performance of the organization, whether we had allocation or we're five week lead times, we've been able to perform and I expect us to continue to perform as we go forward, no matter what the environment is.

Yeah, well, if it's hand to mouth, at least you guys had the experience and done this before. Maybe from my follow up, Rusty, if you could just expand a bit on the parts and service. Obviously, it was softer in 1Q. Was that more in any one part of the business collision, big fleets for small fleets?

And then you mentioned you expected an improvement in two. Did you mean a return to year over year growth or just sequentially higher than the first quarter?

Sequential, okay. I'm hoping, but I'm not here to guarantee any year over year growth, right? I think, one of the key things is you asked about Q1 we'll start there. It started off slow. I mean, weather in January, I know there's always weather, but we had more stores shut down days this year than we did the prior year in January with some of the rough weather that came through.

I was very concerned in January. We saw a pickup in February, and we saw a pickup from there into March. I mean, I'll be honest, we just looked at April this morning. Obviously, it's May 1. April was solid. It was choppy, maybe a little off per day average, but it looks like our backlog is similar. When I talk about that, that's a work in process as to what we were at the end of March, very similar within a point or so.

So, I'm not. It's just a little bit, it's choppy, right? Again, the uncertainty is wrapped around like right now, you go ask anybody what you're seeing lots and less of it is miles driven. Is not really good. You'll see that customer, especially over the road customers, are not putting the miles on their vehicles that they historically have. And obviously with less miles probably needs less maintenance and less repair to go with it.

That said, given the, given the dynamics of all the programs that we have out there, I do believe we'll be able to have sequential growth because January and February were softer, right? We picked up through March, a little bit choppy and maybe here I'm just looking at numbers today for April, but we're real close.

So, and typically these months are better months for us. When you get into May and June and July, you get into summer and your air conditioning work picks up and things like that, around the country because we got a lot of stores in the south. So, I would look for sequential growth. I'm not here to commit to year over year growth.

What I have to commit to is if you look at our expense management, year over year we were down in G&A, which is what really look at, I mean S is nothing but a derivative of sales, but G&A was off 5.5% year over year. That's why you only saw a 1.5% drop really in the store operating absorption number, right? 4.5% down only 1.5% you made a lot of it up from an expense perspective, right?

That's the key thing is we do have more than one lever to hit as we go without tearing it apart. So, again, choppy, but we're pretty fluid, as I said, but I believe we proved that out over the last five years and the business model, and we'll continue to operate in the environment and the and we're dealt, and I'm confident in the company.

I'm confident in our folks, and I'm confident in our leadership that we'll make the right decisions to continue to. In my mind, outperform the market, even though we're the only public truck dealer really that's just a truck dealer. I know that I got one or two other comps out there. I do expect us to outperform like we have, which like we usually do in the past.

So, all super helpful. I really appreciate it and best of luck.

Thank you.

Andrew Obin, Bank of America.

Hey, Rusty. How are you?

I'm good, Andrew.

Okay. So just as I hear you're correct on second quarter, sequentially Class 8 is going to be better and sequentially parts and services is going to be better. That's right? I heard that correct.

Well, Andrew, whoa, slightly, but no.

I get it. Yeah.

Slightly, I'm not, let's not get carried away here. The problem is the uncertainty, man. I'll tell you what it was exactly like if I knew, but if you hadn't noticed since we had our first 100 days, every day has been different since January 20, and I'm not being critical there, but exciting stuff changes on a daily basis.\

It's just, it makes it very difficult running a business and for me to get forecasts that are out there. That's why I'm only going. You don't see me going out in the back half of the year. I told you a minute ago on the call, 69. I couldn't told you Q2, 60 days ago, but we were able to put something together when we got, some clarity of what pricing was going to be in Q2, right?

But I don't, again, they're relooking at tariffs again, so the back half of the year is still up in the air and also dealing with what's going on in the economy.

No.

Slightly.

Okay, no, I totally appreciate it. And can you just tell us sequentially, and I know in April, there were some holiday timing issues, but parts and services in April, did that get better or did that from, did that stay stable from March, or did that slow down? And how did, how would I know we're getting hyper-granular here, but was there a slowdown in April?

You get a slightly less than April per day average, but I attribute it hopefully I'm right. I'm attributed it to the Easter week, okay. Easter week, we did not have a very good week, right? I will tell you this, we closed it, we didn't catch it all up here at the end, but we did close better here over the last week. So I'm hoping that we can maintain some of that and by the way, it was still better than January and February, okay, per day average.

So it wasn't quite to where April was on a per day average, but Easter week was a rough week and if you ask me where we ended up today, if you'd asked me a week ago, I would have taken it. Okay, so I felt we had a good close to the month and I know we're getting but there, there's certain pockets in the country that we, I can attribute. I know you always like to know where around the country where things are, but there are certain pockets that you can attribute some of this, a little bit of softness to be honest with you.

Okay, and then as I think, just, I assume that DNA is just fixed is what it is, but as I think relative to '22, right? As I think about SG&A cost, is that a good baseline for what SG&A can be, or we're so bare bones during COVID that it's not applicable, and I should just assume that there has been some inflation over the past two or three years?

Yeah, no, let's not go back that far down. There's no way I'm going to get back down to that number right now, or I'll be cutting meat and bone out of the place because it costs a little bit more money. We didn't give back all those inflationary pressures that we took in '23 and '22 it's not like we've had deflation.

So, you continue to have inflation. That's why we've maintained pretty flat since I made those cuts last year. Around this time, right now, a year ago, we've maintained, which is what's allowed us, that's why Q1 was off 5.5% over last year's Q1.

We've been able to hold it. Is there more we can do, possibly, we're continuing to look at that, on a rather daily, weekly basis. But again, as I get clarity, I make those decisions. I try to continue to get clarity of the market I'm in, right? I'm going to see how April closes. I'll get the nets on April. I'll look at where we are from GNA perspective.

I mean, when I say hand to mouth, it's hand to mouth in every facet of the business. Is that Is that a bad thing? No, it's just the reality of it, right? And I don't think anybody, I'm very confident in our ability to react. Maybe I can't project as well as I'd like to project for you, but I'm confident in our ability to react or proactively act, should I say, given what we see in front of us, it's just the runway is really short.

There's a lot of haze, a lot of fog, and when I rolled off all the things that are going on, and that's not just for me, that's for our customers. And then we're driven by what customers see, okay. What they do, what affects them, it's hard to make a decision if you're a customer to go out and make an acquisition of product, and you're not going to see any growth even to what you're running less miles, maybe you don't have to replace this often, right?

I mean, there, there's a lot of things that are not positive, but out there from the macro perspective, the most positive thing is our ability in my mind to be able to navigate and make the right decisions given the market that we're headed.

So, I, again though, I'm not projecting doom and gloom in the back half. I'm just given uncertainty because I don't have clarity for it. And as I get it, I'll be happy to tell you. That's why I've been a little.

Yeah, and what do you think? What do you think it would take for OEs to sort of, get more clarity on sort of production schedules for the second half? Is it clarity on, and I appreciate that it's both uncertainty about whether or not we're going into recession, but it's also uncertainty about, sort of treatment of their content, under the new tariff rules?

Do they go together hand in hand or I know that one of the competitors has sort of has given pricing, but it doesn't seem to sort of drive demand for trucks. What sort of unplugs this bottleneck?

Well, one has but there's some stipulations wrapped around it remember because sometimes the devil's in the detail, always remember that and so, as you look at it. Look, Andrew, it's all the above. It's our customer's business. It is our, the clarity with tariffs, as I said, they just announced they're going to do a re-look last week that's supposed to happen over the next few weeks, that it could change again just like it did on the automotive side today this week, right?

I mean, we don't, I mean, their business, our customers' business is not, I think we saw that first quarter GDP results. Go look at the earnings releases of the public carriers. They're not that good. They haven't been, and its no disrespect to them, it's just the facts of the market they're dealing with, okay. Unfortunately, as I've talked about, we've had decent vocational business, decent, municipal business that have allowed us to continue to perform.

What's going to have to happen is business has to get better. Well, okay, we can't have contraction in GDP and expect us to for business to get any better, but people are going to have to start running more miles, we're going to, it's, and we got to get clarity on tariffs. I mean, we think we have them right now, but as I said, they just announced last week they're going to relook at it again. So, we do not know about emissions.

Okay, I do believe it's not going to be as stringent in '21, we were supposed to have this big pre-buy, right, big prebuy, going to start in '25. That's the end back half of '25. Now nobody even talks about it. Why? Because we don't even know the regs. The regs are not done. It's probably 45 days. The house passed yesterday, some stuff around it.

The Senate's got to take it on. But, so again, that's clarity, right? Are we going to need is the price going to go up X? Are we going to require these super long extended warranties? What is, what's the, what are the milligrams going to be when they're in the night stuff? I mean, all we're pushing out GHG 3 out of 2030, but there's no solid answer on all of that.

And you throw all these things in along with a tough economy and unless not miles being driven and I don't have your answer. All I can tell you is that I'm not producing its doom and gloom. I'm just saying it's very; it's a short window. I cannot see out that far and I don't think anybody can really right now.

And just the last question for me. What's been access to credit? Are people still willing to finance customers or sort of people who provide credit to the industry? Are they providing, are they pooling on credit or they're providing incentives? What's happening in terms of sort of liquidity in the market and ability for you and your customers to access credit? Is it harder the same? Thank you.

Not the same. Credit is not, I don't see any issues with credit, at the moment. I mean, there's not a lot of people running around taking subprime credit, but other than that, if you've got a good balance sheet, a good customer. No, I don't think there's still availability of money out there for you.

That's not an issue and I, when you say incentives, I don't know if you're talking about vehicles or not, there really is nothing like that going on because we're just pricing out a few months right now. Most of the manufacturers are, as I keep saying, one manufacturer stepped out, devils in the details understand sometimes and that could be under since they announced last week that they're relooking, I would be very concerned about.

I understand why manufacturers have not been able to stretch out. I don't like it, neither do customers, but you're living in an environment that changes, it was changing in February to March to April, and now we're doing another relook. So, it's just. It's just difficult. All I can tell you is, I'm very confident in us. Our track record speaks for itself. We're nimble. We will make; we will sell drugs. We will work on drugs, and we will continue to produce solid results.

We have many levers to pull. It's not just we don't just sell drugs, we don't just work to sell parts, we don't just sell service. We sell a lot of different things. We have a dispense lines to work with. We have many different levers to outperform the market regardless of the hand we're dealt, okay? That's all I can tell you about it. I don't have the answers as to what the back out is going to look like, but I can tell you as soon as I know, I'll let you know if you want to know.

I'll take it. Thanks so much, Rusty.

You bet you.

[Abby Urovic], UBS.

Hi, good morning, guys.

So, I know it's got to be hard to parse this out, but in the hesitancy that you are seeing from customers, when you say it's more from the uncertainty to the prices or more the uncertainty on the macro impacts that would affect their revenues or profitability.

I would say first and foremost their business, I mean, I don't know that I could, I'm not going to say 60-40 or 55-45, it's both. The first thing that needs to happen for someone to get confidence is your own business has to be solid, right? And I think if you read some of these reports. They've been really difficult, right?

So, and people can stretch out lives on vehicles, but it's also very difficult when I can't price them and tell them what I'm going to sell them a truck for in October or November or, any of those things. So, I, you do it with here your price is this with a caveat unless somebody decides to change the tariff laws, rules, and customers understand that they don't like it. We don't like it, but for me to say which is more is both, okay?

I know that's kind of a lame answer, but it's the truth, and that's all I ever tell. So, it's the truth it's both, but first your business has to be good. Why am I first. No one's growing their fleet. Let's get real, okay? The only people that if you're just trying to get replacement, but people can slow replacement down too.

Products are not what they were 30 years ago. They're much better. You can put more miles on products, and by the way, if you're not running as many miles, I can run it longer. I keep appreciating what I got and mileage, as I said earlier, I mentioned a couple times, miles being run on vehicles, I'm not getting into ton miles. I'm getting the vehicles themselves or not, or down.

So, I can probably stretch it out a little bit again. Its just, we just need some certainty around all of this, by the way. Tell me what it's going to cost for a vehicle in January '27. I don't know. We know it's going to be less than what it was projected to be a year ago. We just don't know how those regs come out and how that affects, the OEMs and the engine manufactured.

And how it affects their, what it's going to take from a cost perspective, from their perspective, especially on the warranty piece. So, their business first and then tariffs next, but we can, I can price you for 60 days, but I really can't price you six months out without a caveat.

Yeah, that definitely makes sense. I guess part of what I'm trying to understand is just, if the economy does end up holding up okay, what kind of demand destruction we could see just, from the higher prices. I don't know if you have a view on that. I'll be curious.

Well, I think we'll see if we, if the economy would hold up and just, this is what it's going to be, it's something I've always told him, but you tell me the rules and I'll figure out how to play the game. Problem is they keep changing the rules, man. And so that's made it a little bit difficult, not just for me but for my customer base.

So, the cost is what the cost is. Unfortunately, prices of trucks have gone up dramatically, as we all know. It's crazy to me. I think back how much they've accelerated over the last few years, especially the last couple three, but and then your business has to be better wise so you can push those costs through.

And that has not been the case. We had an oversupply of trucks for a couple of years, remember? We sold all those trucks and really in '22 and '23, and we still had a pretty big year in '24, more than we were anticipating when we went into it. So, there's been an oversupply of trucks for the freight that's out there.

And it's just been a, I've never seen a freight recession last this long, right? It's been quite unique on the negative side of uniqueness, by the way. So I mean, I know it's, I'm hoping that we can get some stability and in the overall economy and continue to.

I'm not sure where we're at in the last couple of months, taking trucks out of the marketplace because we had to get a balance between supply and demand so the customers, we thought, remember, six months ago we thought we saw it turning, right? We're going to get it turned and by right now, they're going to get rate increases.

If they are, they're really slight, you've seen the reports that are out there. They're not what we were anticipating giving on contracts, six months ago, but who anticipated all this upheaval with tariffs and everything else?

And, you look at what's going on, it'll be going on at the ports. We haven't seen all the effects of it yet either, those effects are still coming downstream. Again, I'm not being a Debbie Downer, I'm just a realist. And I have concern for my stuff in California. Those sports with all that Chinese stuff that comes in and how much flows through the port of LA and the port of Long Beach.

Now we'll navigate it, but it's still not good for business overall, because what we're doing, it's more of a longer term. All these tariffs to drive manufacturing back to our country. You don't just add water and stir or flip a light switch, and we should open up that new manufacturing plants.

That takes time. Well, there's an interim of pain. Even our President has said that there's going to be some pain, and that's what we're dealing with, and I think that's what we will continue to deal with for the near-term future. Because it's just we haven't, we haven't gotten to all of it yet by any scratch, okay, I can tell you that, and then it keeps changing. So, it's just hard.

Yeah, definitely understand that. Just want to circle back to the regulations quickly. Last quarter you felt pretty confident that we would still see the low ox regulations, take place, with or without the warranty. Still think that's the case or just no confidence you can have a case.

I don't want to get in where I shouldn't be. I think you you're going to have something lower, yeah. But it's not, it may not be as low as what they had. Okay, that's being debated right now by people above my pay grade. So, I would tell you that, sure it's going to be lower than what it currently is, but it's, it may not be as low as what was originally said originally, put out there.

So, but that's going on as we speak. That debate is going on as we speak. I don't, giving insight into that would probably be a little out of my, I don't think I should, so I don't know. Let's see if someone's going to, yeah, we'll know, we'll know in this quarter. That's why I said earlier, we'll know about in 45 days or so. We'll know where we're at.

By the time this quarter is over with, we'll have the answers. I'm going to just let it play out and stay out of it, but I, it's going to be a good thing, okay. There's nothing wrong. What we were trying to do was just not right. This country in no way was prepared to flip a switch and everything go electric and all this stuff. We didn't, we don't have the grid, the infrastructure.

That's a long-term equation and we had people running with it like, it's just easy like add water and stir. Well, it's 120 years of infrastructure investment internal combustion, and you're not going to change it in five or six years. That was asinine to believe you can do that.

So, it's a good thing how it works itself out as to what the levels are. That's for smarter people than me to figure out, but it's going to be the right thing, right? It is the right thing to do. So that's all I can tell you. But what that does is it probably doesn't drive as big a prebut, right, especially with the tough overall economic situation that we're certainly we're liable to see caused by tariffs and caused not just by tariffs but just everything that's going on right now.

So, I will, I'm not closing the door to a pre-Biden '26 by any stretch, but every day that goes by January '27 gets closer. So, you're condensing it, right? You're condensing that timeframe . And you're fighting an uphill battle when you've got news, the reports and how you know how rough it is on customers anyway.

Regardless, I've got to have business regardless of the price of a truck, regardless of the technology. I've got to have my business fairly straight so I can go buy something, right? So those are some headwinds. So, but I would expect a pre buy sometime.

I just don't think it's, you can clearly say what it'll be given the unknowns or regulations first off, and the unknowns around the terrorists, but really when you talk about the federal unknown regulations, those regulations will have a lot to say and then their business. Remember, first and foremost, it's your own business. I mean, I could take you back.

I remember in 2010 when we switched to SCR, okay, we were going to have this big year in '09. Well, remember, you remember '08 and '09. Well, the economy kind of rode over all that, didn't it? And you can go look at the numbers. '09 never made the pre-buy it was supposed to. So again, hopefully we can get the economy straight.

Hopefully we can get some of this settle down, some of this uncertainty that's out there that's been created in this last 100 days and get back on where we can see a window, see a path in front of us to where, okay, I can make that investment. I can do this. I could, I know where my business is going. That's the key thing. All these things getting flushed out and giving us some direction.

That's the most important thing I can tell you for someone like me. I know running my business, but I'll say it one last time is the fact that I am very confident in Russia Enterprises being able to make adjustments and navigate the uncertainties of the world we're in and give performance above and beyond our peers.

All makes sense to me. All right. I appreciate the perspective. Best of luck. Thank you.

Okay. I will now turn the call back over to Mr. Rush Rusty, Chairman CEO and President for the closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Sure. Well, I appreciate everyone's attendance this morning and I look forward to talking to you, sometime in late July. Hopefully, with some more certainty and clarity, maybe I can give you a six-month window instead of a three-month window, okay. Anyway, everybody has a great day. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, which concludes today's call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.