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Comment by taubek | Hacker News Reader

What has happened with all those cars that weren't sold during 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic? I remember seeing photos of huge parking lots filled with new cars? Did they all get sold in the end?

Here is just one atricle on this topic https://time.com/5830664/cars-cargo-ships/

[Edit]: fixed typo

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My recollection is that only happened during the first month or two of the pandemic. When everyone thought we were surely plunging into a recession or depression. The stock market dropped quite a bit during that same period.

After the initial few months, it all reversed. I don't recall ever seeing any stories like the one you linked past 2020.

> What has happened with all those cars that weren't sold during 2020 and 2021 due to pandemic?

People collectively realized that they don't want to be taking public transit in the middle of a pandemic.

I know that here in Australia its damned hard to get a car.

5 months ago I placed an order, would have been happy with a 2021 model but they don't have any... so I'm stuck waiting till October THIS YEAR... over a years wait. for one of the most popular cars on the Australian market.

Looks like a similar situation to car sales in Eastern Europe in the 1980s. You had to wait for years to be able to buy a new one, even if it was the popular model of the day. Some people made money by registering to the queue and selling their spot.

Trabant, Wartburg, Moskvitch, Zastava, Lada, Skoda,... I guess all of them had a long waiting lists. I don't know if it was a joke but I've heard that people would leave their spots in last will and testimony to their kids.

Not sure about others but in the '80s nobody waited for Zastava. All over the country foreign cars were "assembled" (Opel, Renault, Citroen, WV Golf...) so while Zastava priduced cheaper cars they weren't the only game in the town and they kinda produced enough to satisfy demand (actually I believe that they would prefered that demand for their cars was even larger). Not sure about 60's and 70's though.

It might be fairly easy to get a second-hand hail-damaged-but-mechanically-fine bargain. The flipside of that is the potential insurance hell invited by that situation.

Can you say what you are getting? I got a RAV4 which I ordered in Nov 2020 and collected in late Mar 2021. Not long after the wait list blew out to 8 months.

If I remember correctly rental businesses were offloading cars at a crazy rate to survive the pandemic, but then once people were travelling again they needed to buy them back up at a crazy rate.

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