I read Cummins’ results the way you read a menu outside a dodgy restaurant. Big numbers in bold. Friendly adjectives sprinkled on top. Then the bit you actually need to know is hiding behind a grin and a disinfectant wipe.
Cummins wants you hypnotised by the headline.
$8.5bn Q4 revenue. $593m net income. 13.5% EBITDA. Lovely stuff. They even stamp it with “strong” like it’s a tamper seal.
Problem is, “strong” is doing a lot of unpaid overtime here.
The Headline Numbers, The Aftertaste
If you only read the bullets, you walk away thinking Cummins has found God, cured the grid, and invented money.
If you read the words around the bullets, you see what this quarter really was.
Not a clean future.
Not a heroic transition.
A dirty, dependable present.
The Real Engine Is Not An Engine
Cummins basically tells you what carried this thing.
Distribution and Power Systems. Record sales. Record profitability. And then the little confession tucked into the corporate patter: robust demand for data centre backup power.
There it is. The modern growth story in one sentence.
The AI boom guzzles electricity. The grid coughs. So the “cloud” gets its life support from hulking standby sets sat outside data centres like coffins with starter motors, waiting for the lights to wobble.
Call it “resiliency” if you want. It still smells like exhaust.
When Trucks Cough, Cummins Points At The Cloud
They also admit what they are quietly sweating about.
North America truck markets are weak.
So they pivot. They always pivot.
When the old engine room wobbles, they drag you into the parts counter and the power house and start chanting “mission critical” until you stop asking why the core market looks tired.
Most readers skim these releases like fortune cookies anyway. Cummins knows that. That’s why the narrative is always smoother than the reality.
Hydrogen? More Like Hydrogone
Now for the bit Cummins would prefer you treat as a footnote.
Q4 includes $218m in charges tied to the electrolyser business inside Accelera. Full year, $458m. Strategic review. Non-cash charges. Corporate incense. The full church service.
Translation: the hydrogen dream is doing what it keeps doing. Burning cash, producing slides, and getting “reviewed” when the numbers start shouting. But then it always was a distraction vehicle. A “Cummins is going green” story to tell whilst counting the diesel cash.
They are still paying for yesterday’s green promises, while selling today’s diesel resilience as the grown-up solution.
Hydrogone.
Virtue As A Line Item
Then, like a reflex, they find room to brag about awards and “values” alongside the results.
Because Cummins cannot just report numbers. It has to report virtue. Even to investors.
Which is funny, because we have already spent months pointing out how many of these awards are pay-to-play, self-reported, badge-swaps and corporate participation stickers. Tricking investors, some might call it. Or disingenuous.
When your story is fragile, you staple medals to it.
What They Want You To Do Next
They do not mention TCAP. They never will. Corporates do not point at the bee in the room.
They close the window, spray something expensive, and insist the air is “fresh”.
This release is doing the same four moves Cummins always does when the pressure rises:
- emphasise narrative
- pivot hard to sectors where criticism gets blurred by “mission critical” language
- bury the ugly bits as “charges” and “strategic review”
- wave the virtue badges like a priest waving incense
It is designed to leave you calm, impressed, and moving on.
As TCAP recently extended it’s domain for 2 further years, we aren’t moving on. Maybe investors ought to have known about that.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project