Oil prices climbing toward $100 per barrel are grabbing headlines, but for the commercial vehicle industry, the bigger risk isn’t as obvious: volatility. Rapid swings in the price of crude (recently, from about $61 per barrel to above $100 and back again) can make it difficult for fleets to predict operating costs or plan long-term vehicle investments.

“The risk that we have with oil price is not necessarily the fact that it’s approaching or exceeding, in some cases, $100 a barrel,” said Andrew Wrobel, commercial vehicle insight strategist for the NTEA – The Association for the Work Truck Industry. “The risk is the volatility within that.”

Fuel retailers price gasoline and diesel partly based on replacement cost, which is the expected price of the next shipment. When crude markets swing sharply, retailers raise prices to guard against future increases. Even when pump prices don’t track crude exactly, volatility can keep fuel costs elevated longer than fleets might expect.

“The longer it stays volatile, the longer fuel prices remain elevated,” Wrobel said.

Ongoing conflict in the Middle East — and uncertainty around the Strait of Hormuz, through which a significant share of global oil supply flows — has been a primary driver of recent price swings. 

Should that conflict be resolved and shipping lanes stabilize, Wrobel noted, prices could return relatively quickly to earlier levels. "The goal is to make it flat, so everybody knows what to expect," he said. But until that clarity arrives, fleets are essentially planning around a variable they cannot control.

Ripple Effects Beyond the Pump

Oil volatility also extends beyond fuel prices themselves. Petroleum products are key inputs in plastics, rubber and other materials widely used in vehicle manufacturing and transportation equipment.

“When you have rising costs associated with that (volatility), you’re going to have greater GDP risks, greater inflation risks, which have greater interest rate risks,” Wrobel said.

Those broader economic pressures can eventually influence fleet investment decisions, particularly in an industry where vehicle purchases are generally financed, and equipment is expected to remain in service for a decade or more.

And those costs don't stop at fleet. When higher fuel and materials prices raise the cost of moving and producing goods, those increases tend to flow through to end consumers. At a moment when inflation remains a concern, that pass-through effect adds another layer of risk that extends well beyond fleets and trucking.

Stability Drives Fleet Decision-Making

Fleet operators do have tools to manage fuel risk, including financial hedges such as fuel futures contracts. But Wrobel cautioned that the current environment makes that lever harder to pull than it might appear. "You look at the volatility right now, it's a high risk," he said. 

Buying futures when prices are swinging sharply means the hedge itself carries significant uncertainty: if you lock in today's price, it may turn out to be a peak. For most commercial fleets, that calculus doesn't pencil out, and volatility simply gets absorbed into operating costs.

That reflects a broader reality of the industry, Wrobel said: “The overall commercial vehicle industry operates successfully when there’s consistency and stability.”

What About Electrification?

Periods of rising diesel prices often prompt questions about whether fleets will accelerate a shift toward electric vehicles or other alternative fuels. However, “Fuel price is only one lever to whether or not you switch to electric or fuel cell or some alternative fuel,” Wrobel said.

Commercial fleets must also consider infrastructure availability, duty cycles, and total cost of ownership. While electric vehicles are gaining traction in certain applications—such as last-mile delivery routes—the technology still faces limitations in heavier-duty operations.

Alternative Fuels Still Have a Role

Even so, the broader conversation around powertrains continues to evolve. While electrification dominates much of the industry discussion, Wrobel said other alternative fuels still offer opportunities in specific use cases.

Biodiesel, compressed natural gas, and propane remain viable options for fleets that have the appropriate fueling infrastructure and operational profiles. “Are there growth opportunities? Yes,” Wrobel said. “Is it a high or a fast growth opportunity? Not necessarily.”

For many fleets, those fuels represent incremental steps toward emissions reduction rather than a wholesale transformation of powertrains.

Waiting For Stability

For fleet operators, the bigger challenge may not be the absolute price of oil but the difficulty of planning around it.

Until energy markets settle into a more predictable pattern, volatility is likely to remain a key factor shaping fuel budgets, vehicle strategies, and broader investment decisions across the commercial vehicle sector.