Toyota may scale back its ambitious target of selling more vehicles in the United States this year than it did in 2007, as damage from an economic slowdown and soaring oil prices becomes more fully known.

Surpassing the 2.62 million vehicles the company sold last year in the U.S. — its biggest market — would be difficult, executive vice-president Tokuichi Uranishi told a shareholders meeting Tuesday, according to Toyota spokesman Paul Nolasco.

Toyota said in December that it was hoping to sell 2.64 million vehicles in America in 2008 and predicted a five per cent jump in global sales to 9.85 million because of strong sales in emerging markets such as China and Russia.

Toyota Motor Corp. will review its sales targets in July, as it does every year.

Through the first half of June, total auto sales in the U.S. were running at an annualized rate of about 12.5 million, according to J.D. Power & Associates. It was the lowest level in decades and a huge drop from the year-earlier annualized rate of 16.3 million vehicles.

Uranishi projected that total U.S. auto sales could slip under 15 million this year, Nolasco said.

Last week, Ford Motor Co. said industrywide sales could drop as low as 14.4 million for the year, which would be the lowest in 13 years, according to Ward's AutoInfoBank.

With buyers fleeing to smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, demand has soared for Toyota's gasoline-electric hybrid models. Still, their popularity has been unable to fully insulate the Japanese carmaker from a drop-off in sales of larger vehicles.

Toyota announced recently a slowdown in production of large pickup trucks and sport utility vehicles at plants in Texas and Indiana.

The shift in consumer preference has hit Toyota's American-based rivals especially hard.

General Motors Corp. said Monday that it would further cut SUV and pickup-truck production, on top of its announcement earlier this month that it will close four North American plants by 2010, including one in Oshawa, Ont.

GM also plans to offer zero-interest financing to clear out inventories of some 2008 pickups and SUVs.

Ford announced cuts Friday at seven pickup truck and SUV factories for the remainder of the year. It now plans to produce 475,000 vehicles in the third quarter, 25 per cent fewer than in the same period last year.