New Cars Going Nowhere Fast; Inventories Swell to Bursting

Robert Farago
by Robert Farago

If you think it’s a buyer’s market for new cars, oh man are you right. But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Literally. “At the Long Beach port near Los Angeles,” Reuters reports. “Toyota Motor Corp vehicles including Prius hybrids, FJ Cruiser sport utility vehicles and Lexus IS 250 luxury sedans are being stored on a vast construction site that will one day be a new container terminal. The site became a gigantic parking lot when Toyota and Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz asked the port for space to store thousands of vehicles that dealerships have not been able to take on due to sluggish sales.” Imagine this. “The port has not counted how many additional cars were being stored, but Wong said Toyota has leased an additional 23 acres of space while Mercedes-Benz has leased about 20 more acres.” So, if the ports are choking on new cars, where are Motown’s unsold machines? Everywhere, our spies tell us. Everywhere. Import or domestic, their products don’t have an idefinite shelf life. There’s only so long the manufacturers can afford to keep these new cars off the market, propping-up new car prices. Bottom line: as predicted here, new car prices are headed for one Hell of a crash. And soon.

Robert Farago
Robert Farago

More by Robert Farago

Comments
Join the conversation
4 of 26 comments
  • Ihatetrees Ihatetrees on Dec 08, 2008

    My price point of $12K for a nicely equipped 4x4 Silverado may be too high...

  • Juniper Juniper on Dec 08, 2008

    Is this the famous "PULL" system I see touted so much? They must be pulling on the wrong thing.

  • RetardedSparks RetardedSparks on Dec 08, 2008

    I fail to see how getting $10k off a $45k pickup truck is a deal when the thing has no right costing more than $20k to begin with. Nobody has pointed out that vehicle prices have hyper inflated at the same rate as houses, and a serious market correction is in order. When a VW Golf (granted, top-of-the-line) sells for almost $40k there is something seriously wrong with the world.

  • Landcrusher Landcrusher on Dec 08, 2008

    Templar, The amount of car makers that actually employ craftsmen to build cars is very small. Those cars usually cost over 100k. If you are indeed a person who can do a job really well, to the level of craftsmanship that you seem to demand, then you can likely afford one. The truth is, most people DON'T WANT craftsmanship anymore. They want quality manufacturing at a value price. Given the choice, very few people will pay the 3x cost to have an expert do anything. I will bet dollars to donuts that if you looked harder, or knew the right people to call in the first place, you could find movers who, at a much higher cost, would move your goods with extreme care. You don't always get what you pay for, but you very rarely get what you don't pay for. ----- Retarded Sparks brings up a good point. Do the car makers usually double their money on their variable costs? If so, will the bottom be 50% off?

Next