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While the Detroit Three dominate big pickups, Toyota Motor Corp. has become the top mid-size truck seller in the U.S. with its Tacoma. GM, which stopped building a mid-size pickup for the U.S. last year, is returning to the segment with a redesigned version of the Chevrolet Colorado, betting it can appeal to Toyota buyers.

Along with the Colorado, GM will also offer a GMC version called the Canyon.

Ford Motor Co., whose F-Series has been the best-selling truck for 36 years, only sells full-size and heavy-duty versions, as does Chrysler Group LLC's Ram brand. Toyota doesn't offer a heavy-duty pickup while offering full-size and compact trucks.

Toyota can produce a combined 250,000 Tundra full-sized and Tacoma compact pickups in San Antonio, running two shifts plus overtime and Saturdays, Fay said. Toyota's knockdown assembly plant in Tijuana, Mexico, can add another 50,000 Tacomas, but many of those trucks go to Mexico and Canada.

Assembly line tweaks could add about 7,000 units at each plant, Fay said. But that might not be enough.

Even if Tacoma sales were to stay flat next year, the combined pickup sales would exceed what San Antonio and Tijuana could produce for the United States. The quick rebound in pickup sales has caught Toyota by surprise.

DETROIT -- Chrysler Group says it has developed a tank to store compressed natural gas that mimics human lungs and will allow the cheaper fuel source to more easily be used in automobiles.

The design uses smaller compartments inside a larger tank to increase fuel capacity and storage, similar to the alveoli within the human lung. It would free automakers from being forced to use large reinforced cylinders to store compressed natural gas onboard automobiles and would allow fuel to be stored within non-cylindrical shapes.

Chrysler currently offers one CNG vehicle: a Ram 2500 heavy-duty pickup capable of traveling up to 255 miles powered by the fuel. The pickup is also equipped with a 35-gallon reserve gasoline tank that extends its total range to 745 miles. It is powered by a 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 engine capable of burning both gasoline and CNG.

GM has said there is pent-up demand for the redesigned 2015 Silverado heavy-duty pickups, which are expected to begin arriving in showrooms by the end of January. In

GM introduced one of the biggest engine programs in its history. Later this spring GM will debut the first of a new family of small Ecotec engines, 11 in all, that will be built around the world in five plants by 2017. The new three- and four-cylinder engines will eventually account for nearly 25 percent of GM’s total engine production and produced at the rate of 10,000 engines a day.

GM and Ford are collaborating on a new generation of 9- and 10-speed transmissions. The 10-speed gearboxes will be used in both company’s pickups in about two years. The F-150 and the GM twins, Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra, lag far behind Chrysler’s Ram 1500 Ecodiesel in the fuel economy race.

for the time being, both trucks use six-speed transmissions, while the Ram has 8-speeds.

Small crossovers and big pickups soared in 2013, as the two segments combined to account for one of every four vehicles sold. But growth in the compact and mid-sized car segments slowed significantly, and minivan sales declined.

car sales rose 4 percent, and light-truck sales increased 11 percent

In contrast to all of the segments that grew, minivan sales fell 2 percent, after rising 14 percent a year ago. It was an especially tight race among the four major minivan nameplates, with the three runners-up each falling fewer than 8,000 units short of the Honda Odyssey.