70,000 New Cars Haven't Made It To Dealer Lots Thanks To Rail Car Shortage https://jalopnik.com/70-000-new-cars-havent-made-it-to-dealer-lots-thanks-to-1850547978

Rail Car Shortage Keeping 70,000 New Cars Off Dealer Lots As Supply Chain Issues Continue

The new car shortage is not nearly as bad as it was just a couple years ago, but there's no way to get them in dealers' hands.

By Lawrence Hodge
Published Friday 1:39PM

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the auto industry has dealt with shutdowns, chip shortages, supplier and material shortages — all while trying to quickly pivot to electrifying new car offerings. While we haven’t gotten around to eliminating all of those issues quite yet, cars are back in production and we’re seeing more and more new product hitting lots. But, there could be more. Now it appears a rail car shortage is keeping cars from dealer lots and consumer garages.

Industry regulators estimate over 70,000 brand new cars are unable to be delivered to dealers because there aren’t enough railcars, as reported by the Detroit Free Press. Rail cars are essential to the auto industry and getting cars from the factory to dealer lots. According to John Bozzella, CEO of Alliance for Automotive Innovation, every year over 75 percent of all new vehicles in the U.S. are moved by railcar. With that many vehicles moving annually, if there’s a shortage of rail cars, you can see how this situation would reach a critical point.

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