Detroit dealer cuts: Not deep enough to get Japanese parity

There's a great post on the lean manufacturing blog Evolving Excellence about the auto industry and what it might really take to fix it. Bottom line -- Evolving Excellence says more dealer cuts needed so General Motors Corporation (NYS: GM) and Ford Motor Company (NYS: F) will have to take more inventory write downs and buyout more dealers. Even with these reduced dealer levels, the U.S. automakers still only sell roughly one-half as many cars per dealer as their Japanese counterparts.
Here's a rough breakdown compiled by Evolving Excellence. It's gonna get ugly.

2008 UNIT SALES DEALERS UNITS PER DEALER
HONDA 1,425,000 1000 1,425
TOYOTA 2,250,000 1800 1,250
FORD 2,025,000 3800 533
GM 2,950,000 6300 468
CHRYSLER 1,475,000 3200 461

To about this:

2008 UNIT SALES DEALERS UNITS PER DEALER
HONDA 1,425,000 1,000 1,425
TOYOTA 2,250,000 1,800 1,250
GM 2,950,000 3,700 797
CHRYSLER 1,475,000 2,400 615
FORD 2,025,000 3,800 533

More about the implications of these numbers can be found at Evolving Excellence.

Alex Salkever is Director of Research at Piqqem.com, a stock prediction community powered by the Wisdom of Crowds.
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