Seventeen of the world's largest automakers want President Donald Trump to find a compromise with California on his plan to weaken Obama-era tailpipe emissions standards, The New York Times reported.

In a letter sent to Trump on Thursday, car companies including Ford, General Motors, Toyota and BMW asked the administration to return to the negotiating table so as to avoid "an extended period of litigation and instability." They worried the current plans would hurt their profits.

Automakers had initially sought a weakening of the standards put in place by former President Barack Obama to address the climate crisis. The standards would have set a fuel efficiency target of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025. But the Trump administration draft plan would freeze mileage standards at around 37 miles per gallon and revoke California's waiver to set its own standards under the Clean Air Act, all but guaranteeing that California and the 13 other states that have adopted its tougher standards would sue. Car makers are then worried about having to design cars for two separate U.S. markets.

"What works best for consumers, communities, and the millions of U.S. employees that work in the auto industry is one national standard that is practical, achievable, and consistent across the 50 states," the companies wrote, according to the Detroit Free Press. "In addition, our customers expect continuous improvements in safety, efficiency, and capability. For these reasons, we support a unified standard that both achieves year-over-year improvements in fuel economy and facilitates the adoption of vehicles with alternative powertrains."

Negotiations between California and the administration on a national standard broke down in February, and the final Trump fuel efficiency plan is due this summer.

"Our thinking is, the rule is still being finalized, there is still time to develop a final rule that is good for consumers, policymakers and automakers," Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers Vice President Gloria Bergquist told The New York Times.

Fiat Chrysler was the only of the Big Three U.S. car companies not to sign the letter. Other companies who did sign included Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Subaru, Volvo and Volkswagen.

Some questioned the timing of the automakers' intervention.

"The reality was if they had sent these letters months ago, there might have been a possibility of doing something," Safe Climate Campaign of the Center for Auto Safety Director Dan Becker told the Los Angeles Times. "But doing it at the last minute when they know the administration is poised to issue this rule any week now … it's just so they can say to people who object: 'Oh, we were opposed, we weren't in Trump's pocket.'"