After two leading Japanese automakers, Toyota and Honda, another Japanese company, Nissan Motor Co. plans to make production cuts in trucks and minivans and will focus more on fuel- efficient passenger cars. The automaker is threatened by the higher gasoline prices and consumer demand shift from larger vehicles to smaller cars.

Like most of the companies in the automotive industry, Nissan will shift more of its North American production to smaller cars with four- cylinder engines, while cutting back on truck production and minivans.

Nissan’s CEO Carlos Ghosn said, “Today, the market wants passenger cars and, even more specific, four-cylinder passenger cars. We cannot build enough of them. At the same time, we have overcapacity in trucks.”

Ghosn said that Nissan currently has less than 30 days supply of passenger cars in North America and a six month supply of trucks. He said the company needs to make more changes and fast, as the market shifts towards more fuel-efficient and compact cars.

Nissan’s passenger car sales were up 5.3 percent to 335,969 during the first six months of 2008, as compared to the same period in 2007. But its truck sales fell 13.8 percent to 186,353 units. The total sales of Nissan for the first half of this year dropped 2.4 percent to 522,322 units.

As a part of the plans Nissan will discontinue the production of its Quest minivan along with the Infiniti QX56, at its Canton plant in Mississippi. Instead the company will begin building commercial vehicles at the plant.

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