New Delhi: High crude prices have hit the auto makers hard. General Motors is shutting down its pick-up and SUV plants in the US, Canada and Mexico in the next two years. Each plant has over 2,500 employees. GM is also looking at selling its popular Hummer brand that’s because rising fuel prices have changed consumer preference. People choose smaller cars over the truck models.

The company now plans to produce more fuel-efficient vehicles.

The cuts will affect about 2,500 workers at each of the four facilities, although Wagoner did not know exact numbers. Many will be able to take openings created when 19,000 more US hourly workers leave later this year through early retirement and buyout offers.

GM Chairman and CEO Rick Wagone said the company has no plans to allocate products to the four plants in the future.

"We really would not foresee the likely prospect of new products in the plants that we're announcing today that we'll cease production in," he told a Moraine, Ohio, city official who asked a question in a telephone conference call.

The moves will save the company $1 billion per year starting in 2010. Combined with previous efforts, GM will have cut costs by $15 billion a year, Wagoner said.

Wagoner said General Motors Corp.'s board approved the production schedule of the Chevrolet Volt, and the company plans to bring the plug-in electric car to showrooms by the end of 2010. The Volt runs on an electric motor and has a small engine to recharge its batteries.

He said the change in the US market to smaller vehicles likely is permanent. "We at GM don't think this is a spike or a temporary shift," Wagoner said.

On the Hummer, Wagoner said GM is "undertaking a strategic review of the Hummer brand, to determine its fit with GM's evolving product portfolio" in light of changing market conditions.