Ford Motor Co.’s president of the Americas, Mark Fields, on Tuesday said Ford would be dedicated to making its future vehicles “meet or beat the competition in fuel economy in the face of $4-a-gallon gasoline, weak consumer confidence and plunging auto sales.

Fields noted that July auto sales have been no better than they were in June, when they plummeted 18% industrywide. The first half of the year was the worst sales level in the United States in 15 years, and Ford’s sales for the year are off 14%, mostly because of falling truck sales.

The event was held just days before Ford is expected to post significant second-quarter losses and further restructuring of its unprofitable North American operations. Ford has said it will bring fuel-efficient models from Europe as it retools its North American lineup. The Associated Press reported that Ford will bring six small vehicles from overseas. Ford will move assembly of the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator from the Michigan Truck Plant in Wayne to the Kentucky Truck Plant in Louisville, the Louisville Courier-Journal reported. Michigan Truck will be retooled to make the Focus compact car, according to the New York Times.

Ford also delayed addition of a third shift at its Oakville, Ontario, plant, surprising 350 would-be workers, who were to start training next week, the Courier-Journal reported. The plant makes the Ford Edge, Ford Flex and Lincoln MKX crossovers — a fast-growing segment as consumers seek fuel-efficient alternatives to pickups and truck-based SUVs.

While new hires at the Oakville plant find themselves on hold, the factory still will absorb 160 workers laid off from Ford in Windsor, Ontario, said spokeswoman Lauren More.

Ford is cutting production of trucks in response to slumping sales. When asked when Ford thought the economy might bottom out or rebound, Fields did not have an answer.

“We don’t know,” said Fields, who was at a centennial celebration for the Model T, which has attracted thousands of collectors and fans to a sprawling field in Wayne County, Ind.

Founder Henry Ford started building the Model T in 1908, and the vehicle helped establish Ford Motor Co. and revolutionize modern society.

Fields told a crowd of attendees and journalists that Ford would be rolling out its EcoBoost technology, which uses gasoline injection and turbocharging to improve the efficiency of a regular gas engine.

Ford is planning to sell 500,000 engines with the new technology annually within four years, company spokesman Said Deep said.

Fields said that Ford’s new objectives to focus on small cars and environmentally friendly technologies were consistent with the principles of Henry Ford and his Model T, which was capable of running on ethanol and gasoline.

Fields declined to answer questions about Ford’s latest restructuring plan.

When asked about reports that Ford might be launching a new plan for Mercury, the company’s long-ailing premium brand, which is positioned between the mainstream Ford and luxury Lincoln nameplates, Fields defended the brand for attracting customers who are not lured by the Ford name.

Through June, Mercury sales were down 24% compared with the same period a year ago. Customers bought 72,595 Mercury vehicles through March.

The Courier-Journal also reported that the Louisville Assembly Plant is being retooled for vehicles smaller than the Explorer midsize SUV. Ford spokeswoman Angie Kozleski declined comment.

Luxury-car maker BMW AG issued a hefty profit warning and signaled a return to more conservative sales tactics, reversing a policy of using steep discounts and cheap leases to win U.S. market share.

The German company said it would cut production and raise prices globally, especially in the U.S., as it disclosed that second-quarter net profit fell 33% to €506 million ($789.3 million), down from €751 million in the year-earlier period. Revenue was down less than 1% to €14.6 billion.

Like other premium German brands selling in the U.S., BMW faces an increasingly tough choice between trying to protect profitability and hold on to market share, industry analysts say.

In recent years, BMW has pushed aggressively to sell cars in the U.S., using discounts and easy leasing terms. That trend accelerated over the past year as the U.S. market turned sour, forcing brutal price competition to draw customers into showrooms.

Auto executives and analysts warn that BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi, the luxury brand of Volkswagen AG, all risk losing their most valuable asset — their exclusivity — by copying the hard-sell high-volume tactics U.S. car makers have used for decades. BMW now appears to be struggling to return to its previous sales strategy known as “pull” — making customers line up to wait for cars and pay full price, attracted by the belief they are getting an exclusive product.

“Any premium auto maker that strives to push volume for its own sake, runs the risk of losing exclusivity,” says Vic Doolan, president of Volvo Cars North America until March 2005, and president of BMW of North America until July 1999.

BMW said Friday it wants to “retain its position as the world’s leading premium manufacturer.” In 2005 BMW eclipsed Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz to become the world’s biggest-selling premium auto maker by sales, in part as a result of its aggressive sales tactics. But the Munich-based company said “volume growth will not be pursued at the expense of profitability. In the light of the ongoing weakness of the U.S. dollar and market, sales volumes will be reduced in the U.S. on a targeted basis as part of a new strategy for this region.”

BMW has been among the most aggressive companies in its use of discounts to sell cars in the U.S., offering an average $4,680 per car in June, up 62% from June 2007. Rival Mercedes-Benz offered $4,692 of discounts, roughly 35% more than in June 2007. Audi, which offered $4,085 per car in June, ramped up its incentives by 50%, figures supplied by Autodata Corp. show.

The incentives are higher than those granted by Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp., but they’re also higher than those for Lexus, which offered incentives of $1,557 per car in June, and Acura, which offered discounts of $1,841.

Cheap leasing deals have also hurt BMW’s profits. In the second quarter, BMW booked a charge of €459 million related to its leasing business, following a €236 million charge in the first quarter.

A sharp downturn in auto markets in recent weeks means BMW won’t meet its previous profit target for 2008, the company said, warning that 2009 will also be a tough year. BMW said it expects the operating margin in its automotive division to reach “approximately 4% or higher” in 2008, down from the 6.4% in 2007.

BMW’s bid to boost sales volumes appears to have been eroding the company’s profitability for some time. While its auto sales rose to 1.5 million cars in 2007 from 1.05 million cars in 2002, operating margins for that segment shrank to 6.4% at the end of 2007 from 9.2% in 2002. Currency factors, rising investments in fuel-efficient technology, the rising price of raw materials, as well as slumping demand in the U.S., have contributed toward eroding profits, the company says.

Rather than seeking to top the 336,000 cars BMW sold in the U.S. in 2007, sales volume figures are “likely to be lower than a year ago,” the company said. On a group level, BMW has decided to “reduce production volumes and increase selling prices.”

Audi recently reduced its sales target in the U.S. to 95,000 units from the 100,000 in sales it previously had targeted for this year, a spokesman for the company said Friday. Daimler, the Stuttgart, Germany-based parent company of Mercedes-Benz, late last month gave a profit warning and also said it would give increased emphasis to growing volumes profitably.