Hamburg - High fuel prices are triggering major changes in the car market worldwide with customers turning their backs on fuel-guzzlers and the industry rethinking its product line-up.

In the United States, the world's largest car market, the sales figures for May showed a major shift from SUVs (sports utility vehicles) and pickup trucks to more economical small cars.

"May was a watershed month," said Ford's Vice-President of Marketing and Communications, Jim Farley, admitting that the industry is catching on to their customers' new buying habits.

The market leader in the US, General Motors (GM), saw sales in May falling by a quarter to 272,00 units with Ford's sales down to 257,000.

Ford's F-series pickup truck, which was the best-sold vehicle on the market for the past 26 years, was ousted by four Japanese sedans in just one month.

Meanwhile, GM has postponed plans to launch a redesigned line-up of its SUVs and pickups for 2012 and is to close four factories producing these vehicles.

In Germany, new car sales were down 6 per cent in May to 275,300 units over the same month last year, according to figures released by the industrial association VDA. Sales of diesel cars were down 3 per cent to 44.5 per cent of the total.

In the past, customers were quite willing to pay more money for a diesel car and pay higher taxes in the knowledge that both the price of diesel and the consumption was far lower. But in May, the price of diesel equalled that of petrol.

"The trend towards the diesel is over," according to car market analyst Christoph Stuermer of Global Insight.

This is particularly painful for the German car industry which has invested hundreds of millions of euros in upgrading the diesel engine and making it attractive for the luxury car market.

Market expert Professor Ferdinand Duedenhoeffer, also confirming the end of the diesel boom, sees the market share of diesels falling rapidly to around 38 per cent by
2015.

Customers, meanwhile, are unlikely to pay lots of money for fuel-guzzling SUVs, big luxury sedan or pickup trucks, if they become virtually worthless on the used car market.

Car makers are also revising their product lines to catch up with the trend and are speeding up alternative drive projects. GM is hyping its electric-driven Chevrolet Volt scheduled for launch in 2010. Mercedes is launching a small series of the B-Class model with fuel cell technology and an electric Smart minicar in the same year. VW is planning an electric drive of its Up! concept.

For the moment, petrol engines are being downsized to make them more economical and boost performance. Hybrid technology, which has electric drive combined with a combustion engine, is being fast-tracked by all the major car makers.

Toyota has announced that all its models will be available as hybrid versions by the year 2020. (dpa)