Also it is worth mentioning that part of the major reason accounting for inflation is car price. It’s going down now as chip makers produce more and prices go down further.
It's also going down because it's a debt market and financing is more expensive w/ used car interest rates at 9% instead of 4% and new cars at 5% instead of 0%...
I expect the number of car sales in the US to go down significantly like it has in Europe. Interest rates are one major factor, but another is the electric transition. Anecdotally I know quite a few people that aren't buying new vehicles right now. They're the kind of people that buy a new car every 10 years or so, and are delaying their purchase or buying used. They realize it's a bad idea to buy a new gas car but aren't yet ready to buy an electric car because they don't understand them yet, they're too expensive, have a massive backlog, or don't come in the style/variant they want.
My reasons: in 10 years time most local gas stations will be closed, 95% of the demand for used cars will be for electrics and 97% of the supply will be gasoline so the car will only have its scrap metal value.
But most people aren't thinking that far ahead. They just know I can recharge my car for $10 but it costs them $100 to refill theirs. They know that electricity prices are a lot more stable than gas prices.
I agree with your general sentiment, but I think this timeline doesn't necessarily extrapolate well for the United States. The average age of a vehicle on the road in the US is about 12 years - aftermarket suppliers as well as oil/gas companies have a very strong incentive to plan that far ahead in order to keep up with the demand. Especially given that the quantity of gas vehicles on the road will be, as you say, such a large percentage of the market.
Miles/year of old cars is a lot less than new cars. So demand for gas in 10 years might be about half of what it is now. Some stations will still do well, but a lot of marginal stations will disappear.
Gas exploration is way down. No gas production won't stop, but supply growth seems to be completely stalled while demand is not due to developing countries continuing to get richer. Gas will likely continue to be expensive as we transition away from fossil fuels.
Car lots need to be knocked down a peg or ten. Car sales folks are the scummiest folks on earth and they have been empowered by this disaster of a market for too long.
The overwhelming majority of car sales people know almost nothing about cars. That's already how you know that their industry is basically useless.
It's also extremely predatory. Anyone trying to pay a 30K mark up on a rav4 prime is being swindled (even if they think they're not). You (the sales person) should prevent obviously stupid car sales (or shit like 25% apr hellcats to US soldiers), but of course not, they're greedy!
I don't buy cars often but it seems like the last decade or so, the major dealers anyways, don't play a lot of games like they used to. They put a decently fair price out there and can maybe knock a bit off but with some much information about cars today (CarFAX, BlueBook, searching online) it's really difficult to swindle people. So they just list a fair price and go from there.
They make a lot of their money today selling warranties, service packages, and financing.
I was looking a few weeks ago and the sales associate mentioned that it's starting to come down but they've just struggled so much at getting enough inventory that people were willing to bid up from MSRP. He advised me it's still a bad time to buy a car and that next year will probably be better.
Well, yeah. There was an imbalance in the market between the supply of cars and the demand from consumers for cars. People were willing to spend more than ever, especially with super low interest rates making it nearly free to borrow money.