Ford Cutting U.S. Production For 2008

Ford Motor Co. no longer expects to return to profitability by 2009 and is cutting North American production of pickups and SUVs for the rest of this year as high gas prices and the weak economy hurt sales, the company announced Thursday.

The Dearborn-based automaker also cut back its projections for total U.S. sales in 2008 to between 15 million and 15.4 million vehicles. That's down from 17 million vehicles as recently as 2005.

"Unless there is a fairly rapid turnaround in U.S. business conditions, which we are not anticipating, it now looks like it will take longer than expected to achieve our North American Automotive profitability goal," Ford President and Chief Executive Alan Mulally said in a statement.