Report: US car makers take longer to sell cars

If you want an indication of just how much trouble US carmakers are in, you just need to take a look at the number of days it takes them to sell a car. The big 2.5 are struggling to keep up with consumer demand for smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles, and this is playing straight into the hands of foreign car companies.

Worst on the list is Chrysler, which takes 101 days on average to sell a car, but GM and Ford aren’t much further behind with 88 and 84 days respectively. In comparison, Asian car companies such as Nissan and Honda were at 60 days and 38 days respectively. In the lead is Toyota, which needs just 26 days to sell a car.

The WSJ reported today that Chrysler is still having trouble shifting stock to dealers, who still haven't sold most of their MY2006 inventory. It's now offering $1,000 on stock that has a dealer invoice before April 1, 2006, as these cars have been the slowest selling. Chrysler's mismanagement has already doubled their third-quarter loss to $1.5 billion, and there's no word on how this new issue will affect Q4 results.