Washington » Humbled and fighting for survival, Detroit's once-mighty automakers appealed to Congress with a retooled case for a huge bailout Tuesday, pledging to slash work forces, car lines and executive pay in return for a federal lifeline. GM said it wouldn't last till New Year's without an immediate $4 billion and could drag the entire industry down if it fails.

General Motors Corp., asking for as much as $18 billion to keep afloat and survive even worse economic storms, painted the direst portrait to date of what could happen if Congress doesn't act quickly.

"There isn't a Plan B," said Chief Operating Officer Fritz Henderson. New sales figures underscored the seriousness of the situation. Ford said its November U.S. light vehicle sales tumbled 31 percent, while sales at Toyota, Japan's No. 1 automaker, fell 34 percent despite its extension of zero-percent financing on many vehicles.

Democratic leaders have said they might call Congress back next week to pass an auto bailout -- but only if the carmakers' blueprints and testimony later this week show the Big Three have reasonable plans to stay viable with the help.

Making no commitments, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday, "We want to see a restructuring of their approach, that they have a new business model, a new business plan. It is my hope that we would" pass legislation to help the industry.

All three plans envision the government getting a stake in the auto companies that would allow taxpayers to share in future gains if they recover.

On Wall Street, investors wary about the economy drew solace from Ford CEO Alan Mulally, who said the automaker has enough cash to make it through 2009 and might not need government help, though rival GM's warnings briefly shook the market before stocks rebounded at the close.

In a session that showed more indecision than conviction, the Dow Jones Industrial came back from the previous day's massive decline, rising 270 points, and all the major indexes rose more than 3 percent.

Along with detailed stabilization plans, Detroit's Big Three auto executives were offering up a hefty dose of humility and a host of symbolic concessions designed to repair their images, badly tattered after they arrived in Washington last month on three separate private jets to plead for federal help.

Mulally, GM CEO Rick Wagoner and Chrysler chief Bob Nardelli all planned to road-trip to Washington in fuel-efficient hybrid cars for hearings on Thursday and Friday.

Mulally and Wagoner both said they'd work for $1 per year if their firms took any government loan money, while Ford offered to cancel management bonuses and salaried employees' merit raises next year, and GM said it would slash top executives' pay. Both said they would sell their corporate aircraft.

Ford Motor Co., in far better shape than GM and Chrysler LLC, asked for a $9 billion "standby line of credit" to stabilize its business but said it didn't expect to tap the funds unless one of Detroit's other Big Three went bust. Its plan projected Ford would break even or turn a pretax profit in 2011.

The company plans to cut its number of dealers by more than 600, to 3,790 by the end of the year.

The unions were preparing to make sacrifices, as well. United Auto Workers leaders summoned local union leaders from across the country to an emergency meeting today in Detroit to discuss possible concessions. Up for discussion were the possibility of scrapping a much-maligned jobs bank in which laid-off workers keep receiving most of their pay and postponing the automakers' payments into a multibillion-dollar union-administered health care fund.

Ford's recovery blueprint said it would invest $14 billion over the next seven years to boost its vehicles' fuel efficiency and speed its rollout of electric and hybrid gas-electric vehicles.

GM said it would make huge cuts in its numbers of workers, as well as reductions in its vehicle brands and plants by 2012. The auto giant is seeking a $12 billion loan to keep it running, plus a $6 billion line of credit in case market conditions worsen.

GM would focus on four brands -- Chevrolet, GMC, Buick and Cadillac. By 2012, the plan calls for 20,000 to 30,000 fewer workers, a reduction of nine facilities and 1,750 fewer dealers.

Chrysler was expected to outline changes that would include a swap of debt in the company for equity stakes and reductions in some vehicle models.