The lot at the new Hello Mazda of San Diego dealership in the city's Kearny Mesa neighborhood is a microcosm of all the unpredictable things that have upended the car market.
“If somebody would have said to me 10 years ago, ‘Hey, this is what’s going to happen,’ I would have been like, you’re crazy, there is no way,” said general manager Idaliz Maldonado. “But here we are, all these things happening at the same time or right after another.”
Last week, only a half-dozen new Mazdas sat in the parking lot, along with 25 used vehicles. Under normal circumstances, Maldonado said a dealership of comparable size would stock about 80 to 100 new models and another 100 used. But these are not normal times in the auto industry.
