GENERAL Motors Corp may be forced to break up a seven-decade marriage of pickups and large sport-utility vehicles as Americans restrict the fossil-fuel diet of their transportation.
Under pressure to produce a more fuel-efficient and cleaner-running line of vehicles, GM is investigating ways to design a lighter replacement for its biggest SUVs, such as the Chevrolet Tahoe, without relying on a heavier pickup-truck frame, according to industry insiders.
The Tahoe and its predecessors have shared the design of the Chevy Silverado pickups since the model was introduced in 1965.
While no decision has been made, GM engineers are considering a shift in 2012 to a car-like construction for successors to the Tahoe and other large SUVs, including the GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade, the insiders said.
Sea change
"It's a sea change in the type of vehicle that Americans are going to be driving," said Rebecca Lindland, an analyst at consulting firm Global Insight Inc in Lexington, Massachusetts.
"This is a big thing. For a long time, GM has been able to rely mostly on profits from trucks. That's changing."
GM, the world's largest auto maker, may also cut annual production capacity for these larger SUVs and pickups by 40 percent to 1 million vehicles from 1.7 million, the sources said.
A shift away from a 72-year history of building an SUV off a large pickup-truck chassis would echo other moves by Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner as he tries to meet a government requirement to cut fuel use 40 percent by 2020.
Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC are also making fewer heavy-duty trucks to reduce their fleets' fuel consumption and meet the future mandate of a national average of 35 miles a gallon.