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Chaotic car market could be here to stay for next year

One West Michigan car sales consultant says in his 30 years in the business, he's never seen anything like this.

Consumers have been dealing with a chaotic car market the last several months with extremely low inventory, leading to inflated prices. Those in the industry say there are no signs of any relief anytime soon.

Patrick Kelly is a sales consultant with the Keller Ford dealership on the west side of Grand Rapids. He says, “If someone has a car they don’t really need, they can do really well right now selling it.”

Grand Valley State University economics professor, Paul Isely, says, “Everything is unprecedented in these times. I mean, it’s the world of COVID, isn’t it?”

Both say it’s still a mystery just how long the pandemic will cause a shakeup in the auto industry, or exactly what the industry will look like on the other side.

“I believe we have seven new vehicles on the lot – Ford vehicles – and we should probably have 135 to 150 right now,” said Kelly.

There are a couple reasons behind the short supply of vehicles: the chip shortage as well as rental agencies competing for vehicles after selling off their fleets amid the lockdowns. Sources say it’s a trend that could continue over the next six months to a year.

“We’ve never gone through this. I’ve been doing this over 30 years at this dealership. So, I’ve experienced a lot of crazy things over the years but never anything like this,” said Kelly.

Car makers have had to prioritize their best sellers, changes that could affect car production well beyond the pandemic.

“It may cause them to reevaluate those vehicles that they don’t make a lot of money on and say, ‘what can we do to change that?’ And that might say, ‘okay, we’re going to stop making them.’ Or, it might be, ‘hey, that’s a perfect place for us to move to electric vehicles,” said Isely.

For those of you in the market for a new vehicle, Kelly says they’re putting an emphasis on pre-orders right now. Those vehicles are taking between two to six months to arrive.

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