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Why does a fire truck cost $2m
- lukebechtel 1y agothanks PE!
- ryandrake 1y agoThe reason appears about 1/4 of the way into the article, and it should be familiar by now: > Sensing an opportunity, a private equity group called American Industrial Partners (AIP) began to roll up the industry. As usual, things are the way they are because of unchecked capitalism and private equity being allowed to do whatever they hell they want.
- uxhacker 1y agoWhat stops imports?
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoRegulation most likely.
- monero-xmr 1y agoDarn capitalism and its regulation
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoIt’s likely regulation is a too-high barrier of entry for foreign products, and it’s also likely regulation was steered by lobbying from the currently dominant vendor.
- c-hendricks 1y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- bee_rider 1y agoCapitalism that has defects introduced via regulation is sort of like Communism that has defects introduced by authoritarians: the actual version that gets implemented.
- loloquwowndueo 1y agoTotally unregulated capitalism only works in a world full of perfectly ethical and moral people. Sounds like an Ayn Rand novel to me!
- lotsofpulp 1y agoSurely, the government and legal liability play no part in this, only bad businesses.
- ajsnigrutin 1y agoProbably the government, also-capitalist buyers would buy cheaper if they could.
- stephen_g 1y agoOne point is that the US fire services seem to like really massive trucks, but fire trucks overseas are generally smaller.
- mousethatroared 1y agoRoads in the US have more space and homes in the US are more flammable
- throwaway2037 1y agoM A N makes enormous fire trucks, and they are quite popular throughout continental Europe.
- WarOnPrivacy 1y agoSensing an opportunity, a private equity group called American Industrial Partners (AIP) began to roll up the industry. > As usual, things are the way they are because of unregulated capitalism and private equity being allowed to do whatever they hell they want. This is exactly what happened - and why. Capitalism is a healthy system where it is a healthy system. Beyond that, capitalism is either: Beneficial thru flexible, effective governance. Or not beneficial. That's every possibility. Exploitive manipulation of the firetruck market lies outside of the healthy-by-default area of capitalism.
- ianmcgowan 1y agoI don’t get why municipal investment isn’t more of a thing - why can’t cities and counties be their own PE, buy a small fire truck company and turn it into a non-profit? If they captured the surplus that’s going to the PE company surely costs would be cheaper? I guess that’s socialism though, so not gonna happen.
- monkeyelite 1y agoWhy can’t there be more than one provider of this good?
- mousethatroared 1y agoSmall market
- monkeyelite 1y agoSo society would actually NOT be more efficient if another company developed a slightly cheaper fire truck because there isn’t enough gluttony to make it worth it?
- mousethatroared 1y agoYou asked why there's only one company, not what would be good.
- monkeyelite 1y agoThe comment we are replying to: > As usual, things are the way they are because of unchecked capitalism and private equity being allowed to do whatever they hell they want.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- petra303 1y agoI would think it’s more about economy of scale. If you tried to build a car without any of the standard parts being available, it would be expensive.
- actuallyalys 1y agoThat explains why they're expensive, but not why they're more expensive than they were before.
- pas 1y agoOne likely significant factor is the Baumol effect. As mass-produced things get cheaper everything that requires a lot of manual labor gets relatively more and more expensive. This is basically the Abbott baby formula shortage but for this other critical product. Instead of having a large market with more competition the US has its own special sausage.
- chrisg23 1y agoHere’s a good video with overlap on the reasons causing this, with current cost comparisons for Chinese made fire trucks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78nZ-JJNmzQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78nZ-JJNmzQ
- chmod775 1y agoBy the way the owners of AIP also happen to mostly be suppliers of materials for building these vehicles. They have a double incentive to abuse their monopoly position. Comparable vehicles cost ~500k Euro (~600k USD) in Germany for instance. Update regulations to allow imported vehicles, get popcorn, and laugh as they wail and cry foul play.
- ajsnigrutin 1y ago> Comparable vehicles cost ~500k Euro (~600k USD) in Germany for instance. Update regulations to allow imported vehicles, get popcorn, and laugh as they wail and cry foul play. And immediately get 100% tarrifs :)
- d4mi3n 1y agoDouble 600k is still less than 2m. Might still be a viable tactic to bring down the current prices.
- returningfory2 1y agoThe article says this company has one third of the market. This is not a monopoly.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- phendrenad2 1y agoIt says that cost for a regular fire truck has increased from 300-500k to 1mil from 2010 to 2025. Considering house and car prices have doubled, we can chalk most of that up to purely inflation. Seems like another case of forgetting that inflation has been sky-high due to botched COVID response and what would be a good story in previous decades just, isn't.
- sarchertech 1y agoThat doesn’t explain the other half of the story which is that it takes 4-5 years to get one.
- topspin 1y agoStandard low rate production effects. Equipment like fire trucks are full of weird, low volume things made by a few, or only one shop somewhere, built exclusively to order, with long lead times. A fire truck is simultaneously a mobile power station, a mobile high pressure water pump, a mobile communications base station, and a high performance all-terrain, all-weather vehicle. It has to do all of that without killing any firemen, so there are very high liability costs factored in. Also, every major department has a collection of hang-ups about how a fire truck is supposed to function and what it's compatible with, so there is no way to scale production. The consolidation of suppliers for all of this is also a contributor to cost and delivery time. That problem is endemic throughout Western economies.
- 8bitsrule 1y agoThe article makes it abundantly clear (down a ways from the top) that much of the cost increase is due to small companies being acquired by monopolists. E.g. > Fast forward 60 years, and those businesses were contending with aging founders, depleted municipal budgets, and declining fire-truck orders. Sensing an opportunity, a private equity group called American Industrial Partners (AIP) began to roll up the industry.... the REV Group, now one of the three leading manufacturers of fire trucks in the U.S. REV captures about a third of the country’s $3B in annual fire truck sales ...
- topherPedersen 1y agoAs a consumer (even a corporate or government consumer), you have to watch out for this in a capitalist system. My ex's family asked me to take my son to this specific water park this weekend. When I went to buy the tickets this morning, it was going to be $250 to go to the swimming pool! I live in Austin, TX and we have the coolest pool in the world and it's $5 ($8 or something like that if I take my son). Businesses will try and trick people into thinking $250 is an acceptable price to charge to visit a swimming pool. They'll do the same shit with firetrucks if nobody is paying attention. Excellent article, and great to see someone pointing this out. Prices will climb out of control if people are suckers and believe the lie of "you get what you pay for." It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money. Extended rant... my ex once wanted to pay $500 for a f*cking vacuum cleaner. People are stupid. Had we listened to Henry Ford they'd still be making some version of the Model T and you could buy a new car for $6,008.85 (inflation adjusted price of a Model T).
- lotsofpulp 1y ago> It's more like businesses will keep ratcheting up prices indefinitely as long as there are suckers around who are easily parted with their money. Who wouldn’t? Aren’t people usually proud of minimizing their work to pay ratio, whether it’s earning more and more to sit at a desk and browse HN or selling a firetruck for a new high price.
- markrages 1y agoVacuum people have been trying to normalize high prices for a long time... From the old Internet: https://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html https://www.cockeyed.com/citizen/kirby/kirby.html
- stinkbeetle 1y agoWhen it's companies preying on impulse buying, brands, trends, temporary demand spikes like a popular water park on a popular weekend then it's understandable to see people paying more than they "should" have (according to one's own high and mighty objective standards), and perhaps blame "capitalism" or believe there should be some regulation to protect consumers. Sure. But when it is government bureaucrats spending public money procuring multi million dollar equipment, the problem is more likely to be government corruption or at best incompetence.
- crystal_revenge 1y agoWhat's really wild is $2M is around the cost of a single Tomahawk cruise missile, Patriot missiles can cost almost double that. The Excalibur GPS guided round costs roughly as much as a nice Mercedes and during a conflict hundreds or thousands can be fired. I came to this realization when learning about someone driving a car into a building to do damage and thinking "wow, that's an expensive round", then looking it up and realizing, it's not actually that expensive compared to how much military projectiles really do cost. I've found it somewhat interesting that we'll be shocked at a fire truck, which gets a life time of 15-25 years and works in the service exclusively of saving lives, costs around $2 million, but not be shocked that we effectively use something as expensive as a fire truck as a single round in a gigantic gun. Not to say that fire trucks don't potentially cost too much, nor that military weapons aren't worth it. More that I don't think most people are really aware of the obscene costs of military conflicts.
- 486sx33 1y ago[dead]
- daft_pink 1y agoIs this really any different to pre-covid, I could negotiate $3k off a Toyota Sienna minivan and have my pick of color tomorrow and now there is a several month to a year waiting list and I have to pay $5k to 10k over MSRP and MSRP is up 20% since 2019?
- qmr 1y agoYou should never pay over MSRP. You can get Siennas for $1-2k under MSRP. Shop around.
- tomrod 1y agoWhere?
- toast0 1y agoIf nothing else, check out fb groups. There's a toyotas at msrp group where dealers willing to work with long distance buyers post.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoI paid MSRP but had to go to a dealer further away. The nearest one had several thousands in markup. It magically evaporated when they found out where I was going, but trust had been lost.
- n20benn 1y agoPre-sales tax + tag, or post?
- tayo42 1y agoThat seems crazy lol, why do siennas have a wait list? Is there really that much demand for a minivan? Or is it a supply thing?
- lotsofpulp 1y agoI doubt one has to pay more than MSRP for a Sienna in Jul 2025, but in the minivan market, there is insufficient demand to incentivize automakers to make more of equivalent quality to Toyota. And even if they do, it would take decades to match Toyota's brand reputation. There is Toyota Siena, Honda Odyssey, Kia Carnival, and Chrysler Pacifica, and I think that is it. Among those, the people wanting to buy a Toyota are maybe considering a Honda, but otherwise they are only going to buy a Toyota, and they will pay a premium for Toyota. Chrysler and Kia are downmarket and not a consideration. And minivans are not a huge market, so Toyota probably does not allocate too many resources to making more Siennas since they do not expect to sell many more at their desired price.
- RickJWagner 1y agoYou can find old ones ( said to be in running order ) for around 5k on Facebook Marketplace. That’s some depreciation curve!
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- trailrunner46 1y agoThese numbers for trucks paired with the 3+ year wait times are very real. It hits small communities the hard because they have a small tax base but still need a certain amount of trucks. You can only consolidate so much before you are to far to respond. Another good point called out in the article are the floating costs. The manufactures do in fact increase the costs after the fact so not only do you need to order a truck years ahead of time with a budget you don’t have (borrow money) but then you have to cough up an indeterminate amount of money years later. A real sad time for first responders.
- softgrow 1y agoFire and rescue appliances are a bit of a problematic thing to buy as they never go very far and are retired with low mileages. In my Australian State, South Australia, this a huge contrast with police who buy new from the manufacturer, get a three or maybe five year service contract from the manufacturer and then sell them when the warranty expires and they've done around 100,000 km (60,000 miles). So no servicing worries and they get some tax benefits so it works for them. Ambulances have less mileage and my guess is retire after 10 years. Ambulances are very standardised so can swap metro and country vehicles to get value from the asset. There was a "twin life" ambulance (http://www.old-ambulance.com/Twin-Life.htm http://www.old-ambulance.com/Twin-Life.htm) that had a long life rear bit on a light truck chassis so swap out the motor bit two or three times every 200,000kms, but these days vans are used. There was much sadness in the ambulance fleet buying community when Ford discontinued the F150 type chassis in Australia. But your average (fire/rescue) appliance in the city or country has low mileage. In the city plenty of use but never have to drive far. In the country not much use but do drive further but end up the same a very old vehicle without much mileage on the clock. Trailers can be even older 50 or 60 years before retirement. Another issue with a fire appliance is they carry water which is heavy, three tonnes is a pretty common load. And have other readers have mentioned a monopoly on manufacture wouldn't help.
- waste_monk 1y agoI have heard that the problem with ex-emergency services vehicles is they tend to have low distance on the odometer but drastically higher engine hours, particularly idle hours. That is, they may sit with the engine idling for hours at a time to maintain power to the lights, radios, and other vehicle systems, and are generally closer in wear and tear to a vehicle with several times the mileage. Another problem I have heard of is that while the actual mileage may be low, the miles that are driven tend to be much "harder", in the sense that an emergency services vehicle may be accelerating and stopping rapidly, and generally being thrashed without regard for the vehicle, leading to increased wear on the engine and transmission. It reminds me of the saying attributed to Jeremy Clarkson, about the fastest car in the world being a rental.
- 1y ago
- jay_kyburz 1y agoI think at some point, people are going to have to start doing things for themselves again. Somebody will go buy a standard commercial truck with a flat bed and put a pump and hose on the back of it.
- melagonster 1y agoThey did. From the article: >“If you’re hanging out the window on the fifth floor, we can’t get you on a ground ladder,” he says. “You’re jumping.”
- constantcrying 1y ago>Somebody will go buy a standard commercial truck with a flat bed and put a pump and hose on the back of it. This is literally every single fire truck in Germany. Designing trucks is hard.
- 0xffff2 1y agoType 5/6/7 engines (basically a pickup with a tank and a pump on the back) exist. I'm not a firefighter, but I infer from the fact that these standard firefighting vehicle types are used pretty much exclusively in wild land firefighting that they are not considered suitable for structural firefighting.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- flowmerchant 1y agoSome luxury wake board boats cost $500k. They might get used twice a month, destroy shore lines, pollute the environment and are designed strictly for leisure. They won’t save anyone, or eliminate an enemy.
- Animats 1y agoSo why not M A N fire trucks? Those are widely used in the European Union, and are considered good quality.
- jmcgough 1y agoWe have strict regulations and standards set by the NFPA, EPA, and DOT for fire trucks. Would need to make significant modifications for it to meet standards.
- dwd 1y agoMany of the MAN trucks in Europe are fitted out by a supplier like Rosenbauer (mentioned in the article) who pair a standard truck chassis (MAN, Scania, Mercedes, etc) with a modular equipment layout. You'll know their iconic Panther trucks which are used at many US and Canadian airports. The cost quickly adds up once you start adding features, and they have a lot to choose from. https://www.rosenbauer.com/en/au/rosenbauer-world/vehicles/municipal-vehicles/at https://www.rosenbauer.com/en/au/rosenbauer-world/vehicles/m...
- Invictus0 1y agoWhy don't towns buy the Chinese trucks? Why doesn't a new entrant start making cheaper firetrucks? I really don't know what a firetruck "should" cost but $2M seems reasonable to me for a specialized, low-volume, high-performance, American-built industrial vehicle.
- bensonn 1y agoMy two cents of info as mildly informed. I am a volunteer ff/emt. My department is very well funded compared to the rest of our county. Compared to cities, it is laughably underfunded. We are 90 percent volunteer. We have zero paramedics, only EMTs (about 4). An Engine not only has to run but has to pump. An engine may drive 3 miles but then run for 20 hours without moving but pumping water the entire time (using the transmission to do so). If the pump is not up to standards, FFs do not enter a building. No water, no entry. If the pump isn't compliant then it is not longer an "engine". Mileage is irrelevant. A low mileage engine (10k) might have a million other problems after 100k hours. Who fixes that in a volunteer department? Ambulances are the same. The drive may be short but the engine never stops idling or charging the equipment on board. In the city the answer is always transport. If you have 1 ambulance and 6 hours round trip, you may stay on scene for a while to avoid a transport (assuming you don't risk the patient's life). Most volunteer departments have 1-2 engines, and those are aging. If an engine goes out of service without a replacement, we stop responding. This is not a city/rural problem. If you have ever taken a road trip, gone camping, visited relatives in "the country", then then you are relying on, and praying they have the equipment and staff to respond. Go outside the city for a rafting trip- swiftwater, rope rescue, EMS, traffic... all in the hands of volunteers with no resources. Back to the article- we have one engine out of service. We can't buy 20x our tax revenue. Yes, everything has gone up in price. When EMS and Fire becomes unpurchaseable, there are (dire) consequences.
- throwaway2037 1y agoThanks for the first hand feedback. It is helpful. When I read your post carefully ("laughably underfunded. We are 90 percent volunteer. We have zero paramedics"; "Who fixes that in a volunteer department?"), the first thing that crossed my mind is your tax revenue is just too low. You cannot have nice things with low taxes. Another way to think about it: Are other highly developed nations seeing the same "crisis(es)" that you mention? (Think G-7 and close friends.) Hint: They do not.
- coryrc 1y agoWe're definitely not undertaxed. A big problem is wholesale public corruption. We now pay inflated salaries for current public workers and for extremely-high retirement plans for past workers which was promised decades ago but not funded. * Seattle cops blatantly defraud us and one gets 1 week unpaid vacation: https://publicola.com/2024/11/07/officer-suspended-for-excessive-overtime-again-after-claiming-he-worked-133-hours-in-one-week/ https://publicola.com/2024/11/07/officer-suspended-for-exces... * Those same cops retire at 55 years old with retirement packages worth over $4M (boosted fraudulently as above). * Similarly, Seattle fire calls have a lot of people and a lot of them getting overtime https://publicola.com/2025/01/24/nearly-200-firefighters-made-more-than-200000-last-year-by-amassing-thousands-of-hours-of-overtime/ https://publicola.com/2025/01/24/nearly-200-firefighters-mad... All this means we get taxed a lot more for ever fewer workers. And this only scratches the surface. NFPA demanding all breakers be arc fault (add $1k+ to every home build), Seattle permitting being years backlog, governments don't have workers which know how things should be built so our construction costs are 10x other developed countries. We're living off legacy and have an ever-dropping standard of living.
- fitsumbelay 1y agogrifts like this can't happen without tolerance and in some cases help from corrupt public servants
- jongjong 1y agoGovernment almost always seems to overpay for everything. It's a racket to benefit big finance. The idea that everything is so complex that only a small number of suppliers are capable of building any machine is preposterous. I bet you with a budget of $50 million, I could design and build a Firetruck from scratch as well as the entire production line and I could produce each subsequent truck for $200k max, made in America. I could probably have the whole thing almost fully automated with robots in 5 years with a bit of additional funding. And I know nothing about mechanical or electrical engineering. I just know I could do it. I would find the right people. There doesn't need to be that many components to bloat up the cost/complexity to $2 million, that's ridiculous. I'm no Elon Musk. I just think many people with a little bit of brain could do it if given the opportunity. The problem is lack of opportunity. I will not be given this opportunity because it works against established financial interests. The economy is a zero-sum game, that's a fact. Everybody knows this because nobody would even give me the opportunity to prove it even though $50 million would be chump change for big finance. Why would anyone fund a venture which involves work and risk, when they can already extract the same nominal profits without any additional risk or work? Nobody is thinking about 'real value'; everyone is chasing nominal gains in a race to the bottom; whipping up the entire economy into a giant souffle full of air. Caring about nominal gains is like caring only about volume and ignoring the weight... If the economy was a cooking competition, everyone would end up baking souffle, chocolate mousse and meringue. Nobody would be baking pound cake.
- constantcrying 1y ago>The idea that everything is so complex that only a small number of suppliers are capable of building any machine is preposterous. Did you read the article? It even says that the market is full of smaller companies. Around 50% are at <10% market share.
- jongjong 1y agoIn a nation of 350 million people that's not particularly impressive. The price of the product says it all. It's clearly not competitive.
- encyclic 1y agoAre there any industries where private equity has come in and resulted in better, less expensive, or faster advances in their industry sector?
- sema4hacker 1y agoOur community has three large fire trucks, and one is sent out for every 911 call, even though the vast majority of calls are for medical emergencies, not something requiring a fire truck (which always arrives quickly, but a subsequent ambulance on call is what inevitably hauls a patient to the hospital). I've never understood why the fire department doesn't acquire and dispatch small vehicles for all those medical calls instead of a giant fire truck. Seems like that would help hold down costs.
- dominick-cc 1y agoI assumed it's so it gets used, otherwise it would just sit there and might not work when needed
- brudgers 1y agoThe fire truck goes because it has a paramedic. It needs a paramedic because fire fighters often need paramedics. So if the small vehicle has a paramedic, you still need one for the big truck. And if you have another vehicle, you need a bigger apparatus bay at the station and more beds and more staff times three shifts. Finally, when the 911 call comes in there is not time to triage. The system is optimized for response time because people might die.
- JeremyMorgan 1y agoValid question, and I hear it all the time. Most of the time it's due to preparedness and staffing. By having those 4 people on a fully equipped engine, if something big (structure fire, vehicle extrication, rescue) happens, they can jump in and go with a vehicle full of tools. (provided the ambulance crew can take over). Otherwise if they're in a car, they'd have to drive back through traffic to the station, move their gear to the new vehicle, and drive back to the scene. It can cost valuable time. Fire engines carry a surprisingly large amount of tools and equipment for a variety of purposes. That being said, many larger departments are trying out "cars" (usually an SUV) with two people and a med bag to go to medical calls. While the engine/truck and crew stay at the station. This is fairly expensive with the new vehicle, equipment and extra staffing. However it is being done now with success in urban areas.
- renewiltord 1y agoFirefighters want massive trucks they don’t need and push a bunch of regulation that makes everything worse. It’s not a big surprise.
- throwaway13337 1y agoThe real cost of the American fire truck is in the roads it forces to be extra wide. It’s those trucks that make it necessary to have oversized neighborhood streets. Most countries don’t need that. In Europe, you’ll see small, peaceful neighborhoods where people naturally drive slower on narrower roads. More greenspace. Less asphalt. They have small fire trucks that can navigate those streets just fine. There’s really no reason they need to be so massive. It's a choice.
- jojobas 1y agoOr rather, European cities have to settle with inferior small fire engines because of their legacy infrastructure.
- PetitPrince 1y agoAnd yet you have similar or better fire death rates statistics in Europe (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/fire-death-rates) despite "inferior" gear.
- jojobas 1y agoPerhaps they have more of them per sq.km/dwelling, or build houses and make wiring to less crappy standards. The choice of bigger, heavier trucks is not because of shortage of smaller chassis or excess money, they fit more stuff.
- DoesntMatter22 1y agoThat works a lot better in Europe because realistically it's a lot smaller. America is absolutely gigantic
- Yacoby 1y agoI'm not sure I understand your point. Just because the country is large doesn't necessarily mean that you need larger fire trucks? (Or that America needs a one size fits all approach to fire trucks - things that work well in cities may not work well in rural areas)
- flowerthoughts 1y agoI was trying to find information how much a new John Deere combine costs, but too much spam... Combines are complicated machines with lots of parts that need to go together nicely. Seems mechanically similar to a fire truck. A 2024 combine [1] is listed for $790k. And a fire truck in Sweden was priced about $700k in 2023 [2]. [1] https://vanwall.com/shop/agriculture/harvesting/combines/2024-john-deere-x9-1100/ https://vanwall.com/shop/agriculture/harvesting/combines/202... [2] https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/satsningen-pa-civilforsvaret-tva-brandbilar-6.3.178012.52296944f5 https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/satsningen-pa-civilforsvaret-tv... (Swedish)
- ropable 1y agoI recently watched a YouTube video that described how American fire trucks have gotten progressively larger over time, which may help explain some of the cost increase: https://youtu.be/j2dHFC31VtQ?si=6yTFjZQwlJz5OZkp https://youtu.be/j2dHFC31VtQ?si=6yTFjZQwlJz5OZkp
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y agoHah! Private equity. All those firms should all be forced to shutdown or be heavily regulated.
- constantcrying 1y agoYes, private equity needs to be shut down because, I don't know, some American city refuses to do maintenance on their trucks or something. Surely private equity is to blame.
- 2muchcoffeeman 1y agoThe solution to cities not doing maintenance for whatever reason is not to gather all the companies together that provided a service under a single banner and then allow them to price gouge. Especially not when that service is required for the fire dept.
- constantcrying 1y agoIn my city the maintenance is done by the fire department, not in the US though. Also fire truck repair is much more amenable to competition (the article points out how fragmented and competitive the market for the trucks themselves already is), this is just truck maintenance there are small to large shops for this around the entire US. Especially since the trucks themselves likely are generic and not fire specific. This is entirely on the city, blaming some other boogeyman for this is absurd. Sure, you hate private equity, but they aren't some menacing ghost causing everything bad in the world.
- dmurray 1y ago> REV captures about a third of the country’s $3B in annual fire truck sales, with runner-up Oshkosh reporting revenue of $767m (~26%) and Rosenbauer International at $254m (~9%). So three companies control around 62% of the market. That doesn't seem like too much consolidation to me. If anything, it might be too little consolidation to hit the sweet spot where the gains from economies of scale outweigh the risks of monopoly effects. For comparison, staying in transportation, in the US 3 companies have 45% of the market share for cars [0]. 3 airlines have 62% [1]. And there are a lot more flights or cars sold than fire trucks: maybe a better comparison is passenger airplanes where three companies worldwide have 99.6% [2]. Private equity may be greedy, and would charge monopoly prices if it could, but there's nothing in the article to suggest that fire truck manufacturers have that kind of pricing power. [0] https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-automakers-by-u-s-market-share/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-automakers-by-u-s-ma... [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/250577/domestic-market-share-of-leading-us-airlines/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/250577/domestic-market-s... [2] https://simpleflying.com/how-airbus-boeing-production-changed-over-past-decade/ https://simpleflying.com/how-airbus-boeing-production-change...
- dmurray 1y agoAlso, the top chart tells you the actual answer: the price of fire trucks tracks pretty well with inflation. Fire trucks are up 860% since 1973, as measured by one Illinois municipality. But everything else is up 620% [0], so that explains 3/4 of the price rise. Nobody thinks manufacturing in the US has got cheaper in real terms over the last fifty years. [0] https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1973?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1973?amount=1
- ashoeafoot 1y agoPut the equipment into container sized modules, load on standard truck, add seats instead of sleeper cabin, buy standard truck.
- constantcrying 1y agoThe article does not answer the question it asks in it headline. It also tries to connect private equity to what is, very clearly a failure in maintenance, which is nonsensical. I don't know about the US, but in Germany all fire trucks are based on generic truck models, so many spare parts are available outside the niche industry of fire vehicles. The blame clearly lies with the underfunding of fire departments, who can not afford proper maintenance.
- thecopy 1y agoNotJustBikes has an interesting video on this topic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2dHFC31VtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2dHFC31VtQ
- potato3732842 1y agoOne one hand all the complaints about regulation and regulatory capture in here are 200% valid. On the other hand JFC Chicago, get your shit together. Even if you're dealing in un-obtainable old garbage it's not hard nor does it require OEM support to keep brakes working and suspension components remaining located under the vehicle. 30yr is a perfectly normal age for vehicles of this size and specialization in every industry that isn't fueled by a firehose of taxpayer monopoly bucks. You pass 30yo semi trucks every day on the highway. When it comes to dump trucks and other vocational trucks that are home every night they're frequently even older. I get that to Karen who doesn't know any better that's "just what happens" to old vehicles and would reinforce the point that they're old but to anyone with the slightest shred of domain knowledge it speaks volumes about the fleet maintenance situation at Chicago fire.
- tptacek 1y agoPart of the problem here and across all municipal finance is that excepting megaprojects (building a new police HQ, refitting every single fire station with new trucks, that kind of thing), capex costs like these are just swamped by the opex costs and, in particular, payroll. How much work are you really going to put into saving <1% of the total municipal budget when you could instead be doing benefits management stuff that will pay out double digits over the next 10 years? I'm not saying you're wrong, just that it's a thing. (Before anyone says it: no, all these dumb capex things probably don't add up to that much relative to the total budget. But it would be easy to show I'm wrong, since all this data is public.)
- tim333 1y agoOn Alibaba a Chinese fire truck looking like it does the job is ~$100k https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-Brand-New-SYM5510JXFJP65-Fire-Fighting_1601395693364.html https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/China-Brand-New-SYM55... In the UK they are ~$500k https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-19629694 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-19629694
- stefantalpalaru 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]