Was in the market for a new car and prior to heading to the dealership, I searched for some advice on what the 'new-car buying experience' was like these days with all the shortages & general market craziness (e.g., gas prices, inflation, etc.). Historically, as a strategy, I pick the vehicle & trim I want and then pin the dealerships against each other, wearing them down to eventually get the best deal. Has worked like a charm for me and my family for decades getting some seriously impressive deals.
If you are looking for a new car, understand that right now (at least in Canada, can't speak for elsewhere although I can't imagine it's any different anywhere else), you're going to be paying full MSRP and no dealership is willing to go under. Why? Demand is seriously overcoming supply and people are willing to pay full prices as a result. Why would a dealer sell you a car at a discount when they can immediately sell it to someone else for full price? In some cases, some people are willing to pay even more than that and dealers are marking up vehicles above and beyond MSRP (although I never witnessed that first hand).
If you're in the market for a small car (as I was), particularly if it's a better quality car (Honda or Toyota), it's unlikely you're going to be able to test drive a brand new one as there are none on the lot. Dealers are still getting random vehicles that haven't been specifically ordered & claimed by customers, but in my experience they usually sit on the lot for about half a day before they're sold. If you're in need of a car pronto you can call around to different dealerships and see what they have in the pipeline and claim one while it's still in transport. This can reduce wait times to only a couple weeks, sometimes days. Of course, color options are pretty limited in this case. In order to test drive, some dealerships may have a floor model specifically test driving (rare) or a loaner car given to people while their car is getting repaired that you can test drive. What I did is just went and test drove used models I found off kijiji of the car that I wanted that were only a year or two old. This actually ended up being kind of helpful as I got to see what the car felt like after a few years of aging. Of course, don't tell the used car salesperson you're doing this haha. Funny enough these cars were actually more expensive than their new counterparts... again, supply and demand. People who need a car immediately have no choice but to pay these exorbitant prices.
Now, onto saving money. You can still pin dealers against each other in the accessory department. In my case, I really wanted to have a $600 spoiler accessory on my car so I told the dealerships I was dealing with that whoever gave me that for free I would go with. Ended up getting a 50% discount on it which in todays day and age, I was just thankful I wasn't having to pay a markup lol.
If you're ordering a custom vehicle (I wanted a very specific color in a particular trim) they're requesting deposits. Please be aware that these amounts vary between dealerships. I had a pretty uncomfortable experience with one dealer where I actually walked out. After clarifying several times that I would only get the car if the deposit was refundable (the wait for the car is 3-6 months, a lot of crazy unexpected things can happen in that time especially in today's day and age), I was presented with a final contract that specified in three separate places that under no circumstances was my $2,000 deposit refundable. I was surprised at the level of absolute bullsh*t that came out of the sales manager's mouth when I confronted him about this. Everything from outright invalidating my concerns, arguing, becoming borderline aggressive, trying to convince me "it's just a contract, you can sign it and we'll still stick to our word"... it was really something. They tried some other incredibly pushy sales tactics which I was not impressed by as well. For anyone who's interested more about this I can go into more detail on that story in the comments lol. After walking out I immediately went to a different dealership (same brand) at which we had a good chuckle & up paying only half of the deposit the other guys wanted and got it in writing that my deposit was refundable without any issue at all. The contrast between the two places was pretty profound.
I inquired about an electric vehicle I was interested in (as well as a hybrid) as I've always been into electric vehicles (my dad builds them for fun), but the wait is literally 3 years hahaha. Plus a lot of these new electric vehicles are first-gen models which you generally don't wanna touch those with a 10-foot pole due to (sometimes severe) bugs.
If you're financing, interest rates on larger more luxurious vehicles are generally considerably higher for some reason. I was able to get a roughly 3% interest rate on a several year term (something like that), which is IMO a very good rate. I have a business with loans and that's by far the lowest rate out of any of my loans so I'm quite pleased about that.