"I think we're really there, where we've finally got tailwinds instead of headwinds." --ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted, speaking in this week's edition of Overdrive Radio about market fundamentals for owner-operators, despite the ongoing fuel shock
In this week's podcast, track back through the full presentation from the first of our Partners in Business coproducer ATBS’s twice-annual updates charting trends in costs, in revenues and bedrock income for owner-operators.
Regular Overdrive readers will know this year’s update reconfigured slightly how the owner-operator tax and business services firm calculates the numbers, and you’ll hear detailed explanation of the changes today from ATBS Vice President Mike Hosted. The Youtube version up top features the full talk with Hosted's slides -- audio-only platform listeners can download those slides to follow along or for further research via this link.
For more, too, from our time spent with Hosted at the Mid-America Trucking Show late last month, find a special report by Overdrive video editor Lawson Rudisill charting Hosted's story of the truly difficult situation in trucking of the last nearly four years, and how rates forecasts for 2026 may well hold true to the positive for all of us this year. That's for the first in a very, very, very long time.
[Related: Why freight rates are finally heating up]
There’s certainly a lot of hope amongst owner-operators and small fleets on that score, even with soaring fuel costs, to which Hosted devotes plenty time in the presentation. There's a lot of positive to take from the operational trend data, all based directly on averages derived from ATBS owner-operator clients' biz performance.
But a few red flags pop out. Among the biggest: Real maintenance spend for the average owner-operator just keeps going up, and up, and up. As the truck ages, it’s going to happen. Yet it’s a sure bet, as Hosted notes, that if you’re not setting aside enough to cover that cost, disaster awaits.
Big mechanical breakdowns and associated costs, including the downtime, are the No. 1 cause of owner-operated business failure in trucking. Just how bad has maintenance cost gotten? According to Hosted, in 2025 owner-operators spent upward of $14,000 on maintenance. Well more than a grand a month, $250-plus/week. For the average ATBS client, maintenance costs have topped 15 cents for every single mile run -- with an average client running roughly 94,000 miles in 2025.
What are you putting aside for maintenance and/or for building that emergency reserve savings? If you haven’t boosted those set-asides in a while, there's no time like the present. Take a listen:
A few related resources:
- The Overdrive/ATBS Partners in Business coproduction, currently updating for 2026.
- Overdrive's Load Profit Analyzer, a calculator for comparing load offers and gaming out rates scenarios based on your real costs.
- How routine preventive maintenance pays owner-op dividends.
- Saving money, staying out of inspectors' crosshairs with smart maintenance.
[Related: Owner-operator income up, with 'capacity-driven recovery' ongoing, fuel cost wildcard]
