Originally Posted by Detroit Free Press

The nation's largest seller of new cars and tucks, AutoNation, Inc., on Friday said it would cut orders for Detroit automakers by 30% during the last three months of the year until it can sell what it called excessively high levels of inventory.

AutoNation spokesman Marc Cannon said the company would continue ordering the same number of foreign-branded vehicles as in the past.

The news comes a day after Mike Jackson, CEO of AutoNation, slammed General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and the Chrysler Group for their high levels of stock nationwide, a result of wanting sales. Through September of this year, sales are down 11.3% for GM, 8.6% for Ford and 7.3% for Chrysler.

Jackson said the nation's auto dealers are struggling to sell domestic vehicles, and the situation is much worse than industry reports about swelling inventories would suggest.

He said Detroit's automakers need an aggressive combination of incentives and production cuts soon to deal with the inventory glut. Otherwise, he feared, dealerships across the country will still be selling 2006 model-year vehicles well into 2007.