You sure picked a great time to buy a car. A nationwide shortage of computer chips has reduced the volume of vehicles on dealers’ lots. High demand and low supply create a dealer’s market, which means buyers of both new and used cars are paying high prices, and apparently it might take months to overcome the problem.

“I would bet that it’s affecting every dealership,” said Buddy Espinosa, general manager of Toyota of Santa Fe-Enchanted Mazda. “And I would say it’s affecting anyone who’s buying a new car now as well.”

Espinosa said he typically has 400 new cars on his lot, but he currently has fewer than 200.

Automakers rely on computer chipmakers in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. And those manufacturers didn’t expect car sales in the United States to charge back so quickly. Pent-up demand from the pandemic and the availability of federal stimulus money have caused a surge in auto-buying interest. The combination of factors has left dealership inventories thin.

“It’s a big deal in our industry,” said Michael Martinez, general manager of Mercedes-Benz of Santa Fe. “It’s pretty challenging, to say the least.”

He said auto inventories nationwide are down about 40 percent.

Instead of hurting business, though, car dealerships say they are doing well for now. Customers seem eager to buy what’s on the lot and willing to pay higher prices. Martinez said that because of the lack of new cars on lots, “used car prices have just gone sky-high as well.”

“Business is great,” Martinez said. “People are out there spending money.”

Vehicles contain dozens of the wafer-like chips, which store data and make decisions for electronic devices.

Jason Miller, associate professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, said American automakers expected sales to plummet last year because of the pandemic.

They canceled many computer chip orders at the same time homebound people bought more and more video games, laptops and smartphones, Miller said. So chip manufacturers in Taiwan and elsewhere turned to making chips for those consumer electronics, he said.

Then vehicle sales jumped because of the availability of federal stimulus money, avoidance of public transit and savings from not spending on some other things, such as travel, during the pandemic.

That carried into 2021, Miller said. In the first quarter of this year, Americans spent roughly $75 billion on new light trucks, up from about $50 billion two years ago, he said. And when automakers wanted more computer chips, manufacturers, Miller said, told them: “Get in line.”

The National Automobile Dealers Association said in its first-quarter assessment: “As demand remains high for new vehicles, vehicle production continues to be negatively impacted by the shortage of microchips.”

The association also cautioned the situation has the potential to hurt dealers. “If sales remain strong in April without a significant boost of inventory, a decline in sales by late in the second quarter is expected due to low inventory levels.”

Espinosa foresaw that problem. “You might do really well one month and then have nothing to sell the next month,” he said.

Martinez said a used car (he and others dealers say “pre-owned”) that sold last year for $40,000 will sell for $50,000 — 25 percent more — this year. “It’s just that everybody is buying everything,” he said. “People are just forced to buy what’s available and what’s on the lot.”

Some used cars can be sold now for more than their original manufacturers’ suggested prices, he said.

Intel, which this week announced a plan to modernize its Rio Rancho plant with a $3.5 billion investment, doesn’t typically make many chips for cars, said Intel spokeswoman Linda Qian. And manufacturers can’t quickly convert their machinery to take on new tasks.

Qian said Intel may produce some components for the auto industry in six to nine months.

“We want to do everything we can” to help, she said. “It can take several months to build a single chip.”

President Joe Biden has proposed in his infrastructure package that $50 billion be invested for semiconductor (basically computer chips, also called microchips) production and research.

Cory Vollmer, general manager of Lithia Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram Fiat of Santa Fe, said trucks are especially affected by the situation.

“I have, like, three to four new trucks on my lot,” Vollmer said, “And we normally carry 30 or 40.”

He said that from what he has heard, the computer chip shortage could affect the auto industry for the next two years.