Toyota joins Nissan in declaring a peak for American car market

Tokyo

JAPAN'S two largest carmakers have arrived at the same conclusion: The US auto market that's functioned as a growth engine has run out of gas.

Toyota Motor Corp cut its forecast for North American sales this fiscal year by 60,000 vehicles and for the first time said it's expecting a decline for the year, as American consumers shift away from fuel sippers such as the Prius hybrid and towards trucks and sport utility vehicles.

Nissan Motor Co, which posted a drop in profit as it gave heftier incentives that buoyed deliveries, said it's not seeing room for further expansion.

"The market turned out to be somewhat weaker," Takahiko Ijichi, a Toyota executive vice-president, told reporters on Tuesday after the carmaker reported a 43 per cent plunge i…