If you have recently tried to buy a car, you probably noticed that there aren't as many new car options as before. A local Champaign dealership spoke on why the U.S. is seeing this shortage, if relief is coming anytime soon and how it'll affect those buying a car.

"If I need 1,000 cars, I'm getting 650," said Ben Quattrone, executive manager of Serra Champaign dealership.

Central Illinois and cities across the nation have been seeing much fewer brand new cars on their lots, meaning customers have a limited inventory to choose from and many cars are selling before they even arrive at the dealership. This is because of a car parts supply shortage that began when the pandemic hit in early 2020.

"Normally manufactures would have parts and lots of warehouses with parts, and cars stacking up and cars on our lots— five or six months of supply, and COVID sucked up that slack," explained Quattrone.

However, the biggest problem causing the shortage is the global lack of semiconductor chips that are used in virtually every part of a car. To help solve this issue, President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed the new bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act of 2022 into law.

"We produce zero percent of these advanced chips now, and China's trying to move way ahead of us," said Biden.

The new law will allow semiconductor chips to be made here in the U.S. and hopefully reduce the cost of cars and other electronics. Though it is possible that we won't see this relief for a while.

"If you're only building only 65% of what the market needs," said Quattrone. "Even if they started to be at full capacity tomorrow, it's a four-year burn."

Serra Champaign encourages anyone who needs to buy a car to go ahead and do it as this issue isn't going to "go back to how it was." They currently have 61 new vehicles on their lot but are on track to sell around 190.