General Motors has announced it is ready to begin producing autocatalysts using palladium rather than platinum.

The news follows a plunge in the price of palladium, with David Andres, GM's purchasing director for commodity traded metals worldwide, saying a change is now imminent.

'We are looking closely at it. The economics look quite appealing. A $500 gap between the platinum and palladium price [...] makes a lot of sense to switch and we have been doing for some applications,' he told Reuters.

Mr Andres said the firm had already used palladium in three autocatalyst models that had previously used platinum.

Mr Andres said he believed there was a palladium 'oversupply issue', meaning the precious metal might offer a significantly cheaper alternative to platinum.