Cars and Drivers

The Slowest Selling Car in America

Douglas A. McIntyre

Published: March 19, 2024 7:10 am

Last Updated: April 24, 2024 11:13 am

No dealer wants to have cars high on the “market day supply” or “days to turn” list. “MDS is a measure of the number of days it would take to sell all of a particular model of car, based on the current sales rate, assuming no additional inventory is added,” explains CarEdge, a provider of information and tools to car buyers. Vehicles the dealer acquires from the manufacturer may languish on the lot. Once a model becomes very unpopular, there is no reason to think that will change.

The car with the most market day supply, making it the slowest-selling car in America, is the BMW X2, with a score of 772, or nearly two years. CarEdge points out that there are 721 of them on lots across the country,

The X2 xDrive28i is one of two versions of the crossover. With a base price of $42,000, it is among BMW’s least expensive vehicles. It has a 241-horsepower engine, underpowered compared to most BMW models, and goes 0 to 60 in 6.2 seconds.

The X2 M35i is the much more powerful and expensive version of the X2. Its 312 horsepower engine speeds it from 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds, and its base price is $52,600. (Here are 25 cars that are still mostly made in America.)

One of the mysteries about why the X2 is the slowest-selling car in America is that it generally gets good reviews. Car and Driver recently gave it an 8.5 out of 10 stars. That leaves open the question of why it does so poorly. The answer may be because of competition. It is up against the Mercedes-Benz GLB-class and the Volvo XC40, which, according to Car and Driver, “offer more space for cargo and passengers.”