So I remember that people used to always ask what the car market will be like in the in a few years so I decided I should answer.
So I used to be a marketing and economics advisor for a large American car brand. During my career I had worked for a few automotive brands and had gotten to know advisors from nearly all brands really well.
Well that all changed in quarter 4 of 2023. Turns out the CEOs and the board members for mutiple brands had decided on a "bold new strategy" after reading some tweets from people who had never bought a new car in their lives.
They decided the thing Americans hate most is instant gratification. So instead of selling a large amount of product to dealerships they were going to switch to an order only model immediately and no new deliveries would be made to dealers until customers placed orders.
Of course everyone with a marketing degree or common sense protested. We pointed out that customers are cheapskates who refuse to buy 7 Ecosports so they can get allocated a single F150 lightning like dealers are required too. They refused to listen so we pointed out that most people can't or wont sit around for 10 weeks to wait for the vehicle to be delivered but again management refused to listen.
They had decided they didn't want to be told what to do by experts anymore and would rather do whatever sounds popular on Twitter and fired every economics advisor they had. I called up my colleagues in other brands and it turns out all the automotive manufacturers had gotten together and agreed to do the same thing and my colleagues were all out of a job for bringing up the same issues.
We decided to get all the local advisors from every brand we could together and go on a bar crawl to drown our sorrows.
It was at the third bar that we discovered what the future of car buying would be. We were ordering beer when the sounds of engines misfiring and transmissions slipping filled the bar. We asked the bartender where it was coming from and he mentioned that the Mitsubishi dealership next door must be unloading thier new cars onto the lot.
We started talking and realized that when all the brands got together to agree to switch to order only everyone forgot to invite Mitsubishi because most people don't even know they still make cars.
We all started laughing about it until we noticed our designated driver Shawn was trying to call someone. He was desperately trying to get his investment accounts sold off so he could buy as much Mitsubishi stock as possible. When we realized this we all scrambled for our phones and did the same.
Honestly at first it seemed to be a failure. The stock stayed steady but low. Until tax season started. It started slow at first, people complaining about the wait online but then "news" websites started reporting on it then the actual news started reporting on it.
When it was reported out that only Mitsubishi would let you drive a car off their lot that day and that they were having trouble keeping enough cars on the lot the stock price exploded. At first Mitsubishi was really struggling with the massive surge in demand.
Thankfully Fiat Chrysler Automobiles folded within months due to the impatience of their target market and Mitsubishi acquired all thier brands. Once the Mitsubishi Wrangler, RAM and Charger started been dumped onto lots after a 6 month dry spell they couldn't be kept in stock either.
As Mitsubishi market share skyrocketed Ford really started to struggle. Like we had warned them having to try and pay for Ecosports production to be ready to go when they only made and sold a few hundred a month nationwide was bad for the balance books.
Meanwhile all the Mustang and F series customers been told anything you buy this spring won't arrive till fall made a lot of them just buy a Mitsubishi Charger or RAM instead. Turns out Customer loyalty only extends as far as their patience does.
After that is was like dominoes, one manufacturer after another collapsed or was bought out by Mitsubishi like entertainment companies near Disney.
The most surprising holdout was Subaru. Since all Mitsubishi salesman are taught to look busy when a clipboard comes out in case it's management doing an inspection no one ever upped a Subaru customer. It's been 24 years and Subaru is still going strong even though everyone else who tried to oppose Mitsubishi failed.
It was only due to a happy coincidence I managed to send this message back. Since I am a major shareholder I got to see Mitsubishi test thier new Quantum CVT which allows your vehicle to be in every single gear while not been in gear all at the same time. The singularity it caused seems to have split me between my time and yours so while I wait for pickup I decided to ask some questions I remember seen been repeated 5 times a week. Also I am sad to report that even in 2047 the reddit search function still does not work.