sport utility vehicles

Record incentives and declining gas prices are combining to lure buyers back toward big pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles, according to the latest vehicle sales data.

Four small sport utility vehicles received top scores in crash tests to be released Wednesday by the insurance industry, a sign of improvement compared with SUVs built earlier in the decade.

The market for sport utility vehicles is starting to look a lot like the housing market, spreading pain to consumers, automakers and dealers.

General Motors Corp. is releasing new, more fuel-efficient versions of its full-size pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles later this fall.

Toyota Motor Corp. is planning significant changes to its U.S. manufacturing plants because of the rapid market shift away from trucks and sport utility vehicles.

The market for hybrid full-size sport utility vehicles may be small, but Chrysler LLC is determined to get a piece of it, saying Tuesday that its new hybrids will be nearly $8,000 less than competitors from General Motors Corp.

With the U.S. auto market worsening for Ford Motor Co. almost daily, managers told union officials Friday that the company will have to further reduce its factory work force in the coming months.

The slumping U.S. economy has cut U.S. auto sales by 8 percent during the first five months of the year, but it's been a double hit on Ford, General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC as consumers shun their high-profit pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles for more fuel-efficient models as they cope with $4 per gallon gasoline.

Ford Motor Co. said Tuesday its U.S. sales fell 15 percent in May as consumers continued to abandon pickups and sport utility vehicles in favor of smaller cars, an industry-wide shift that will force plant closures at General Motors Corp. and production cuts at Ford.

General Motors announced today that it will cut one shift at four North American factories that make pickup trucks and big sport-utility vehicles.

In Janesville, it means the loss of 750 hourly jobs, according to a company spokeswoman.

Volkswagen AG aims to sell 8 million cars a year by 2011 — almost 30 percent more than last year — and will introduce 20 more models including vans, pickups and sport utility vehicles in a bid to expand its market share in Asia, Europe and North America.