I ordered my first new car since '98 in March, (it will probably be my last as well) only to cancel it 6 weeks later, due to just about every single option I requested being removed on a near weekly basis. The final straw was no decent music system, being replaced to the most basic in their range, along with wireless charging being thrown out.
I am quite prepared to wait, as it is only a car, but if I am going to have one, it will have what I want in it.
This is entirely down to the 'chip shortage' brought upon the motor industry entirely by themselves.
Covid saw them totally cancel masses of chips, and all of that production went to the booming requirement for home entertainment setups and mobile communications.
They expected to just then re order when they needed - and nope - all that production is spoken for, and along with the couple of fires wiping out other producers, there is simply not enough headroom to allow for the shortfall, probably late '23 before it begins to return to normal levels.
Huge quantities of cars have simply not been built as retrofit is utterly silly on time, if at all feasable.
This is totally altering the way car producers can build, with the demand for JIT deliveries now out of the window.
This had the major knock of making high spec cars impossible to be found, increasing the value of any that could be purchased.
Some have seen the value of their lease car final paymnet being paid for by the purchase of a newer model.
I am told I may be able to start looking for what I wanted Q2 2022, but I am not holding my breath.
I think Renault have even resorted to going back to old analogue speedos/rev counters etc to try and rescue some production, at least in some ranges.