DETROIT -- Americans shied away from large sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks in April as gasoline prices approached $3 a gallon, and with a battery of new SUVs waiting in the wings, domestic automakers are now facing the very scenario they had hoped to avoid.
Despite gains at Toyota and Honda, declines at General Motors, Ford, DaimlerChrysler and Nissan pushed vehicle sales in the United States down 0.1 percent in April, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank. General Motors had the biggest drop, selling 7.3 percent fewer vehicles than it did in April 2005.
For the first time, Toyota became the nation's No. 3 car seller for the month, passing DaimlerChrysler. That marks a symbolic victory for Toyota, which occasionally outsells the Chrysler division but had never before outsold all of DaimlerChrysler in the United States.
The latest surge in gas prices poses a long-term problem for the domestic auto companies, which had been hoping that gasoline prices would moderate and make SUV sales easier. Now, analysts warn, it may be harder to get consumers to buy a gas-thirsty vehicle when the oil market remains so volatile.
"Last fall when we had this first spike, then people could write it off as a one-time deal," said Stephen J. Hoch, a professor of marketing at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. "The fact that it spikes twice means it can spike again. Now, this time people will say there's enough evidence that this is going to be a recurring if not frequent phenomenon."
Last month, big SUVs and pickup trucks were among the vehicles that had the sharpest sales drops.
The Ford Explorer was down 42 percent compared with April 2005. Sales of Ford's top-selling F-Series pickup fell about 9 percent last month, as did sales of the Nissan Titan.
Sales of the Jeep Grand Cherokee declined 41 percent. Chevrolet Colorado pickup sales fell almost 30 percent.
Gasoline prices aside, the decrease in sales of big SUVs may signal a realignment of the entire SUV segment. Analysts said that with more and more auto companies building SUVs of all sizes and consumer tastes shifting toward smaller vehicles, the heyday of the big truck is over.
"I think all truck-based SUVs are on a downward path," George Pipas, Ford's chief sales analyst, said yesterday. Noting the unabated decline of Ford's large SUVs, he said, "It's pretty eye-popping."
