The length of almost two football fields, the cargo ship Jupiter Spirit arrived in Los Angeles on April 24 after an almost three-week journey from Japan, ready to unload its cargo of about 2,000 Nissan Armada SUVs, Rogue crossovers and Infiniti sedans in a quick, half-day operation.
But when the ship, operated by Nissan Motor Co.’s freight arm, got about a kilometer and a half off offshore, its captain was ordered to drop anchor. And there the ship remained for almost a week — a floating symbol of an unprecedented logjam as nearby storage lots covering scores of hectares overflowed with vehicles that Americans suddenly have little desire to purchase.
There are gluts of all shapes and kinds forming in the United States nowadays, a testament to the scope of the economic pain the coronavirus is inflicting. Slaughterhouses are killing and tossing out thousands of pigs a day, dairy farmers are pouring away milk, oil sellers were paying buyers recently to take barrels off their hands, and now, brand-new cars are being left adrift at sea for days.