vehicles are displayed for sale at an autonation car dealership on april 21 2022 in valencia california detroit – shares of autonation  group 1 automotive and other automotive dealers rallied thursday following strong thirdquarter earnings and optimistic outlooks regarding consumer demand for new vehicles the results and comments followed concerns by some wall street analysts that the industry could soon shift from an inventory supply problem to a lack of demand or demand destruction situation with interest rates rising inflation at record highs and recession fears looming clearly there is some normalization thats going to occur and has occurred group 1 ceo earl hesterberg told investors after the company beat wall streets expectations on wednesday but we dont have any big trepidation about next year … our core businesses such as aftersales and new vehicle sales are moving to remain strong in the nearterm shares of autonation were up by as much as 82 after the company beat wall streets estimates on thursday stocks of others such as group 1 automotive and penske automotive that reported third quarter results on wednesday were up by more than 6 during intraday trading on thursday hesterbergs optimistic comments echoed those of other executives who signaled supply chain problems are likely to keep new vehicle inventories tight for the foreseeable future inventory levels of new vehicles during the third quarter increased but they remained historically low general motors and ford motor this week also said they saw consumer demand holding strong during the third quarter but warned they are closely watching outside economic factors and concerns for any changes we havent seen any direct impact on our products pricing remains strong demand remains strong for our products but we cant ignore what others are saying out there and what others are seeing out there gm cfo paul jacobson told reporters tuesday after reporting strong thirdquarter earnings