DETROIT — General Motors is watching how gas prices might affect pickup and SUV sales, executives said at an analysts and investors conference last week, but they think many customers have enough cash to weather increases.

Buyers of large SUVs "from an income standpoint, certainly have the wherewithal to weather that increase," said Paul Ballew, GM's executive director of global market and industry analysis. Still, gas prices are something "we're wrestling with each and every day," he said.

Whether energy costs will affect pickup and SUV sales is an important question for GM, which sold 2.7 million trucks in the USA in 2004. They accounted for 60 percent of its total sales for the year.

Light trucks also are among the most profitable vehicles for automakers.

The truck market likely won't hit the peaks it did in the late 1990s, Ballew said, when gas was cheaper and SUVs were more in fashion. But GM, which will begin rolling out a new pickup and SUV lineup next year, "remains well positioned to dominate the market even at reduced volumes."

Ballew said the company is predicting gas prices will level out and oil will fall back to about $50 a barrel in the long term. Oil hovered near $70 a barrel in nominal terms last week in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.

CEO Rick Wagoner said the automaker's restructuring is moving forward, but more needs to be done. "All of our business units except GM North America are on or above track, and that has the extreme attention of us all. Progress is moving in the right direction ... but we still have more work to do."

The company gave few details on two of the biggest issues it faces: healthcare costs and talks with its biggest supplier, troubled Delphi.

GM has targeted healthcare, which it expects will cost $5.6 billion this year, as one of its top cost-cutting priorities, but concession talks with its union, United Auto Workers, are continuing.

Delphi, which was spun off from GM in 1998, has threatened to seek Bankruptcy Court protection if it doesn't get financial help from its former parent.