Ford Motor Company announced on Thursday that it was cutting back its North American production for rest of the year because of gas prices and a weak economy.

While it announced an increase in production for the Ford Focus, Fusion, Edge and Escape, the Mercury Milan and Mariner, as well as the Lincoln MKZ and the Lincoln MKX, it's cutting production of large trucks and SUVs in response to customers moving toward more fuel efficient cars and crossovers.

"We are continuing to make great progress on our plan," said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally in a news release on its Web site. "We are profitable and growing outside of North America, and our transformation plan in North America is working. The challenge affecting the entire industry is the accelerating shift in consumer demand away from large trucks and SUVs to smaller cars and crossovers -- combined with a steep rise in commodity prices and the weak U.S. economy."

Ford said it now plans to produce 690,000 vehicles in North America during the second quarter, a further reduction of 20,000 units from previously announced planned production levels and a decline of 15 percent from the second quarter of 2007. The company plans to produce between 510,000 and 540,000 units in the third quarter, down 15 to 20 percent from the same period last year. Fourth-quarter production is expected to be between 590,000 and 630,000 units, down 2 to 8 percent from year-ago levels.

The second-half production plan includes higher car and crossover production compared with a year ago and will be achieved through overtime and added shifts at Ford’s smaller car and crossover assembly plants. Large truck and SUV production in the second half will be lower than a year ago, with reductions achieved through a combination of additional downtime, shift reductions and line-speed actions.

Ford cited substantially higher commodity costs in forcing a change in Ford's near-term financial outlook, the company said.

"Rapidly rising commodity prices -- particularly steel prices -- and higher gasoline prices that are accelerating consumers' shift away from large trucks and SUVs together are having a tremendous impact on our sales, our manufacturing operations and our profitability as we look to 2009," said Ford's President of The Americas Mark Fields.

"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," Mulally said. "Overall, we expect to be about break-even companywide in 2009 -- with continued strong results in Europe and South America."

Ford now expects 2008 U.S. industry volume, including medium and heavy trucks, to be between 15 million and 15.4 million units. Ford, Lincoln and Mercury U.S. market share is expected to be about 14 percent this year -- supported by the introduction of several new products.

"We are making great progress on the acceleration of new products, and our initial quality is among the best in the business," Fields said. "The new Focus, Edge and Escape have had significant sales growth this year, and the pace of our product introductions accelerates even further this summer."

New versions of the Ford Fusion, the Mercury Milan and the Lincoln MKZ mid-size cars also debut later this year, as do all-new hybrid versions of the Fusion and the Milan.