Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- General Motors Corp.'s U.S. dealers are reporting that a decline in pickup-truck sales may be ``bottoming out'' and that some demand is returning for large sport-utility vehicles, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said.

Dealers are seeing ``some resurgence in demand for full-size SUVs and pickups,'' Lutz said today to reporters in Joliet, Illinois, for a test drive of some of the Detroit-based automaker's 2009 models. He didn't provide figures.

``We'll see some stabilizing in pickup and SUV sales now that gasoline prices are off their high mark,'' Erich Merkle, a Grand Rapids, Michigan-based analyst for consulting firm Crowe Chizek & Co., said in an interview. ``Part of the problem for buyers was they didn't know when gas prices would stop rising.''

A revival of consumer interest in the large trucks might help GM stem its 18 percent slide in U.S. sales this year through July. The biggest U.S. automaker is trying to rebuild sales this month with the return of prices usually available to only employees and cash discounts on most 2008 and some 2009 models.

``The auto industry is the smallest it's been in years in terms of sales'' and the U.S. economy is ``lackluster,'' Lutz said. ``Nobody is quite sure when it's going to turn around.''

Pickups, SUVs and vans account for 56 percent of GM's U.S. sales this year. The consumer shift to cars as gasoline prices rose to more than $4 a gallon hurt GM, Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC, which get a majority of their sales from the light trucks, more than Asia-based competitors such as Honda Motor Co. The U.S.-based automakers are shifting production capacity to cars and smaller SUVs.

The average U.S. retail gasoline price was $3.66 a gallon yesterday, according to AAA, the largest U.S. motorist group. That was a drop of 11 percent from the record $4.11 on July 15.

Prices May Rise

Automakers may eventually be able to charge as much as $40,000 in the U.S. for small cars with many extra features, Lutz said, without giving a timeline.

``Part of it is going to be supply-and-demand dictated,'' he told reporters.

Earnings from small cars will never reach the level of those from large SUVs or pickups, even as the decline in demand for the trucks is reducing their profitability, Lutz said. GM has almost eliminated losses on the sale of certain small cars, he said.

In the past three years, GM has been able to raise prices on its Chevrolet Cobalt small car and HHR sport-utility vehicle by about $3,000 each because it hasn't had to offer incentives on them, Lutz said.

``We are selling every HHR and Cobalt we can make,'' he said.

Volt Plans

Lutz also said GM plans to have ``large numbers of production'' Chevrolet Volts available next year for use by the company's employees.

``We're probably not going to have any public fleets,'' he told reporters. The automaker intends for the rechargeable Volt sedan to go as far as 40 miles on battery power alone before an onboard engine kicks in to repower the lithium-ion batteries.

Toyota Motor Corp. today said it plans to move up tests of plug-in hybrid Prius cars to late 2009, from 2010. An all- electric small car will be ``mass-produced'' in the early 2010s, President Katsuaki Watanabe also said in Tokyo, without elaborating.

GM gained 14 cents to $10.34 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have fallen 59 percent this year.

To contact the reporters on this story: Greg Bensinger in New York at gbensinger1@bloomberg.net; Jeff Green in Southfield, Michigan at jgreen16@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: August 28, 2008 16:50 EDT