> needlessly complicated Doesn't seem complicated to me. The US system just warehouses inventory on dealer lots. Maybe because it's feasible due to geography.

> needlessly complicated Doesn't seem complicated to me. The US system just warehouses inventory on dealer lots. Maybe because it's feasible due to geography. Allocating inventory based on prior year's sales is just a way to provide growth incentive to dealers. They don't make much money on new car sales but they do make money on the volume of retained service customers, which is indirectly related to the aggregate of new car sales from prior years. So to make money in the future, the car dealers need to expand new car sales today. Increasing sales is what the manufacturer wants. This all seems like a pretty nicely worked out system, if you ask me.