From the assembly line to the dealership lot, companies are searching for the new Goldilocks level of car production.

One common theme from auto companies’ fourth-quarter earnings calls and analyst discussions over the past six weeks: The industry still isn’t making a volume of cars that’s “just right.” Despite optimism that dealers will soon be able to reduce the backlog of customers waiting to buy new vehicles, the uneven recovery as supply-chains unsnarl and factories start up again is still causing the price of those vehicles to swing wildly.