Toyota's U.S. sales fell 21.4 percent, while Ford Motor Co. said its sales tumbled nearly 28 percent. Chrysler LLC took a huge hit for the month, with sales down 35.9 percent.

GM's shares bounced more than 2 percent higher in late trading Tuesday after sinking to their lowest level in more than a half-century during Monday's session.

The nation's biggest automaker on Tuesday reported selling 262,329 vehicles for the month, compared with Toyota's 193,234. Some industry analysts had expected Toyota to beat GM in the U.S. for the first time, but both companies were hurt by a sluggish economy and poor sales of trucks and sport-utility vehicles.

GM's car sales sank 21 percent in June, while its incentive-boosted truck sales were off 16 percent. For the first half of the year, GM sales fell 16.3 percent, compared with the year-ago period. Toyota sales were down 6.8 percent for the first six months of the year.

To help boost sales, Chrysler said it would extend its $2.99-per-gallon gasoline price guarantee through July 31. The guarantee lasts for three years, with Chrysler paying the difference between $2.99 and the pump price for 12,000 miles per year. It had been scheduled to expire July 7. Honda Motor Co., with its car-heavy lineup, was the only major automaker to report a sales increase in June, a modest 1.1 percent. A 19.3 percent rise in car sales offset a 24 percent drop in trucks. Nissan Motor Co. also reported a bad month, with sales off 17.8 percent. The Japanese automaker saw truck sales plunge 36.1 percent and car sales fall 7.4 percent.

Ford blamed the latest sales decline on high gas prices and low consumer confidence, which sent buyers to the sidelines. It reported steep drops in June sales of pickups and sport-utility vehicles, including a 41 percent year-over-year decline for the F-Series pickup, a perennial best-seller, and a 52 percent drop for the Ford Explorer SUV.

Automakers push back against fuel-efficiency goal

A lobbying group for 10 major automakers contends the federal government is underestimating the cost of increasing fuel economy standards and wants to implement them too quickly.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers said the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's goal of increasing fuel economy by 4.5 percent per year from 2011 to 2015 ''goes beyond what is technologically feasible and economically practicable.'' NHTSA's proposal, released in April, would require new cars and trucks to meet a fleet average of 31.6 mpg by 2015.

NHTSA estimates that its rules would add $821 to the cost of new vehicles, but the alliance said its estimate is $2,063, taking into account the cost of the raw materials that go into hybrid batteries and other fuel-saving technologies. The alliance said the rules would end up costing consumers more than they could save on fuel. NHTSA officials declined comment. - The Associated Press