Low inventories hit Kansas City-area new-car dealers and their customers
Regardless of the make and model being sold, Kansas City-area new-car lots share one feature: lots of empty space.
Dealership inventories, already slimming in recent years, took a dive when shortages of computer chips began causing automakers to intermittently idle plants or partially finish cars early in 2021. That left dealers waiting on deliveries of new cars to sell and has pushed up prices.
At the end of April, 1.13 million unsold new cars were available in the U.S. — a 36-day supply, according…