General Motors is expected to announce Friday it's cutting about 170,000 vehicles from its planned production this year, closing factories for as long as nine weeks this summer, according to a Detroit News report.

U.S. Auto sales, which were down 38 percent in the first quarter, remain downward pressure in April. The biggest U.S. automaker may have to cut production to save money.

GM is racing a 60-day deadline U.S. President Barack Obama announced on March 30. It keeps afloat with 13.4 billion dollars in U.S. loans and scrambles to reach an accord with bondholders and the United Auto Workers union.

But the company's chief financial officer Ray Young said Wednesday that a GM bankruptcy filing was "probable" and that the automaker was unlikely to make a 1-billion-dollar debt payment due June 1 to bondholders.

A placard of Chrysler is seen at a car dealership in New York, the United States, April 7, 2009.The U.S. Treasury will provide a further five billion dollars in loans to General Motors and 500 million dollars to Chrysler as the automakers work on their viability plans, officials said Tuesday. (Xinhua/Liu Xin)