June car sales plummet; more declines expected

"We're going to continue to see declines for the rest of the year," predicted Jesse Toprak, chief industry analyst for auto information site Edmunds.com.

All major automakers but Honda Motor Co. reported steep sales declines for June as buyers continued to flee from trucks and sport utility vehicles to more fuel-efficient models. High gas prices and a sluggish economy helped keep sales low.

Even Toyota, with its flexible, efficient factories, couldn't make the shift from trucks to cars as quickly as American drivers. Its sales for June shrank 21 percent from a year earlier, and it fell far short of some analysts' predictions that it would overtake GM.

June sales at GM had a still-dramatic drop of about 18 percent, as the overall market fell 18.3 percent, according to Autodata Corp.

GM sold about 262,000 vehicles in June, about 69,000 more than Toyota. Car sales were down 21 percent at GM and 9 percent at Toyota. Truck sales were down 16 percent at GM and nearly 39 percent at Toyota.

But Toprak said late-month incentives helped push GM sales after a slow start to June. The company also reported sales increases of more than 20 percent for several car models, including the Chevrolet Cobalt, Pontiac G6 and Chevrolet Malibu.

Still, Toprak said many automakers simply did not react quickly enough to the staggering rise of gas prices.

"I think the gas price rise that we've seen from March through June was so fast and so dramatic that even Toyota, which is known to really forecast consumer demand, was caught off guard," he said.

As the market shifted, some automakers were caught with too few of the smaller cars.