What looked like a prudent business decision at the time – to stop building cars that no one during a pandemic would buy – continues to have wide-ranging effects as strong demand has emptied car lots while the supply chain to build more remains broken.

Gus Johnson Ford in Spokane Valley would generally have about 150 to 200 shiny new vehicles to tempt consumers into upgrading their rides. Now, the lot mostly has empty spaces and just a couple of dozen new vehicles from which to choose.

“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said Jason Moran, used car manager at Gus Johnson, 8300 E. Sprague Ave. “If you would have told me anytime that we would be out of new cars, I would have laughed at you.”

The new car shortage has pushed prices higher for used cars. In fact, some owners who purchased cars two years ago and have 30,000 miles on them can sell those cars for about the same price they paid new, Moran said.

As for the few new cars, the MSRP, or manufacturer’s suggested retail price, used to be a starting point for negotiations. Now that sticker price looks like a bargain.

“It’s great for profit,” Moran said. “But when you have 13 or 14 salespeople running around, and you look at your inventory, you feel very nervous for them. It’s just going to get worse.”

Dealerships across the nation are dealing with the shortages caused by automakers’ decision to shut down orders as millions of Americans were suddenly laid off last year with no real understanding of whether their jobs would come back.

As automakers stopped ordering computer chips needed for new cars, greater demand for laptops and monitors fueled by the new work-from-home economy led semiconductor makers to shift from selling to automakers to manufacturers of personal electronics.

Scott Tate, CEO of Spokane-based Tate Technology, said the chip shortage has effects on automakers and others up and down the economic spectrum. His company takes computer chips and builds circuit boards for electronics used by several major local companies.

“People like us can’t get those chips, so people like us can’t sell them to the automobile manufacturers,” Tate said.

That brief pause, when carmakers initially stopped ordering the electronic components needed for new cars, was hit broadside by a huge demand for home electronics. The problem got doubly worse as stimulus-check fueled buyers pushed demand for new cars.

“When the automobile makers went back to the chip manufacturers and said, ‘Never mind, we need all that stuff,’ the chip manufacturers said, ‘It’s gone. We sold it to somebody else,’ ” Tate said.

That double-whammy effect is what has made the recovery so different, he said.

“By the time the automotive sector kicked back on, all the effects of COVID rolled into one and they couldn’t keep up,” Tate said.

Tate, who employs 45 workers and is looking for more, said he has plenty of orders if he could just get the parts.

“If I was to guess, realistically, the supply chain will be bad for the remainder of the year,” he said. “If factories can stay open, it will start to get better. Hopefully, we will be a little better at this time next year and well on our way to recovery.”

In the meantime, car shoppers at Wendle Ford and Wendle Nissan, at 8900 N. Division St., will not find much selection.

Andy Keys, general sales manager at Wendle, said Ford has mostly shut down making new cars and is focusing on making only those vehicles ordered online by customers.

“We are sitting at about 35 new vehicles on the ground of Fords. We usually have 200 to 250,” he said. “But the nice thing is, we’ve had a ton of new vehicles on order for people.”

The trucks offloading new vehicles can be deceiving, Keys said.

“We have a steady stream of vehicles coming in,” he said. “Unfortunately, most are sold.”

The shortage of new vehicles has had other effects, he said.

“In our market, a lot of used vehicles come down from Canada,” Keys said. “But without new ones being built, they don’t have the used ones to send down. So the book value (of used cars) has gone up.”

The last time the Spokane market had a market disruption of this scale came about 20 years ago when railroad companies retired a number of train cars specially designed to haul automobiles.

“We couldn’t get vehicles to the dealers. It was just a mess,” said Keys, who has been in the business for 30 years. “We’ve seen it before, but never quite like this.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report