NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Ford may be shedding its minivan offering, along with staff and factories when it announces new steps in its turnaround plan later this month, according to a published report.

The Detroit News reports that Ford (Charts) may announce a new class of what the company officials are calling "people movers" to replace its poorly performing minivans when it unveils new details of its restructuring effort.

The Ford Fairlane concept vehicle, which could be the basis of the vehicle that replaces Ford's minivan offering, according to a published report.

The new vehicle, which is expected to replace its slowly-selling minivan products, is to be based on the Ford Fairlane concept vehicle unveiled earlier this year, according to the paper. The paper said it is not clear what the new product will be named.

Most of the attention about the embattled automakers' plans have focused on speeding up staff reduction and plants closing plans.

The company announced in February it expects to close 14 plants and trim 30,000 hourly jobs by 2012, but Wall Street is looking for a more aggressive plan, similar to competitor General Motors (Charts), which used buyout offers and retirement incentives to cut its staff by about 34,000 hourly workers earlier this year.

But the News said Ford also hopes to have some new product information to unveil at the time it details the next state of its turnaround plans. And it reported that a Lincoln version of the vehicle, which is based on the same platform as the Ford Five Hundred sedan and the Ford Freestyle crossover utility vehicle, is also planned.

The Ford has sold only 42,253 of its Freestar minivans in the United States through August this year, down nearly 30 percent from year-earlier sales, it has already stopped production of the Mercury Monterey, which has sold only 3,311 vehicles this year. Together the two minivans represents only about 6.6 percent of the segment, and have seen a 31 percent decline in year-over-year sales.

The shrinking minivan segment is dominated by competitor DaimlerChrysler (Charts), which has 38 percent of the segment, Honda Motor (Charts), which has 18 percent of U.S. minivan sales, and Toyota Motor (Charts), which saw about 16 percent of minivan sales.

Rising fuel prices and new offerings in the so-called crossover sector, which includes SUV-like vehicles built on traditional car platforms, has put pressure on the minivan segment as well, causing industrywide year-to-date U.S. sales to fall 14 percent.

Still most the full-line automakers have continued to offer minivans even it they have seen poor sales. General Motors has minivans in its Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick and Saturn brands, even though its' never had a hit in the segment, and Hyundai debuted its Entourage this year.

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