Cummins Confidential Special : “Owning Up To Our Messes” – A Century Without An Apology

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Cummins “owning up to our messes” would be a lovely idea.

It would also be a fucking first.

Specifically, on 5 August 2026, Cummins published a new episode of its Power Onward podcast called A Century Of Digging Deep. The company intended it as another warm bath of mining nostalgia: a hundred years of engines, heroic partnerships, giant haul trucks, harsh terrain, innovation, trust and all the usual corporate broth ladled from a helmet.

Then Gbile Adewunmi, Vice President of Power Systems Industrial Markets, said the quiet part into a company microphone.

According to Adewunmi, what differentiates Cummins during its low points is “owning up to our messes”.

Sorry, you fucking what?

Cummins?

The same Cummins that responded to a record-setting emissions settlement by saying it had seen no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith and did not admit wrongdoing?

That Cummins?

Apparently so.

You fucking lying cunts.

Moreover, the podcast keeps digging. Adewunmi says Cummins admits failures quickly, takes accountability and accepts responsibility. He does not make the claim once and escape. Instead, he circles it, repeats it and plants a little corporate flag in it.

Indeed, that is the kind of statement TCAP normally has to excavate from beneath six layers of boilerplate. This time, Cummins put it in the transcript, gave it timestamps and published the fucking evidence itself.

No bad faith, obviously.

No wrongdoing, naturally.

Just a microphone left unattended near the corporate mythology.

Cummins “Owning Up To Our Messes” Is The Joke Of The Century

The podcast begins with the standard mining catechism.

Copper feeds electronics. Mining supports artificial intelligence, electric vehicles and modern infrastructure. Enormous machines work around the clock in brutal environments. Cummins has spent a century helping them chew through the planet with dependable power.

Fine. Mining matters. Of course, nobody needs a branded podcast to discover that phones do not grow on trees.

However, the episode is not really about minerals. It is about Cummins trying to establish moral ownership of words such as trust, dependability, accountability and responsibility while retaining legal ownership of absolutely fuck all whenever a scandal walks through the door.

Adewunmi says mining is a place where “you can’t hide”.

Beautiful.

Apparently, you can hide in a consent decree.

You can hide inside the phrase “regulatory claims”. You can hide behind “emissions certification and compliance process”. An “extensive internal review” provides another sturdy little screen. Finally, cooperation, certainty and carefully sterilised corporate language can make nearly one million affected pickup-truck applications sound like a filing problem at a provincial stationery warehouse.

But you cannot hide in mining.

Thank fuck somebody finally established the boundary.

The host, Kim, then treats this accountability sermon as proof that Cummins can “stand on business”. Christ alive. Nothing says standing on business like standing on a 183-page consent decree, pointing at the denial clause and insisting the two-billion-dollar crater arrived without bad faith.

Cummins does not own its messes. It abandons them at the roadside, denies the fingerprints and sends Corporate Communications back later to collect the vocabulary.

No Bad Faith, No Wrongdoing, Just A $2 Billion Fucking Coincidence

Let us compare Cummins’ podcast character with the Cummins that appears when adult supervision arrives.

In December 2023, Cummins announced an agreement in principle to resolve US regulatory claims involving Ram pickup-truck engines. The company said it had cooperated fully, conducted an extensive internal review and worked with regulators for more than four years.

Then came the corporate absolution.

Cummins said it had seen “no evidence that anyone acted in bad faith” and did not admit wrongdoing.

Of course it did not.

The company expected a charge of about $2.04 billion. The matter involved approximately one million pickup-truck applications. Yet, after four years of internal review, the moral crime scene apparently contained no fingerprints, no intention and nobody who had done anything worth admitting.

It was immaculate misconduct.

A virgin scandal.

Nearly one million vehicles wandered into a regulatory inferno by themselves, carrying software nobody had apparently installed in bad faith. The emissions controls grew legs, the code wrote itself and the largest Clean Air Act civil penalty in history descended from the sky like weather.

Nobody meant anything.

Ownership simply evaporated.

Apparently, nobody did anything wrong.

Cummins just misplaced roughly two billion dollars behind the sofa while powering a more prosperous world.

No evidence of bad faith.

Obviously. Just like a Kevin Graham ethics investigation outcome.

The Government Found A Mess Even If Cummins Could Not Find An Owner

By contrast, the US Environmental Protection Agency described something rather less ethereal.

According to the EPA, Cummins configured emissions software features to operate as defeat devices that reduced or deactivated emission controls. The agency said 630,000 model-year 2013 to 2019 Ram 2500 and 3500 vehicles contained illegal defeat devices.

In addition, roughly 330,000 model-year 2019 to 2023 vehicles contained auxiliary emission-control devices that Cummins had not disclosed during certification. Altogether, the government said the affected engines reached nearly one million vehicles.

During compliance testing, the software activated full emission controls. Meanwhile, during other kinds of normal operation, the EPA said those features reduced or deactivated the controls, allowing NOx emissions far above the applicable standards.

Therefore, that is quite a mess.

Specifically, it is not a dropped socket on a mine site. It is not a delayed service call in Mongolia. Nor is it a faulty component followed by a quick, manly handshake with a customer.

Moreover, it involved harmful pollution, public-health consequences, a nationwide recall, extended warranties, mitigation work and corporate reforms intended to reduce the chance of future Clean Air Act violations.

As a result, the civil penalty reached $1.675 billion. Additional recall and mitigation obligations pushed the estimated cost beyond $2 billion. Cummins had to remove defeat devices from affected vehicles and repair at least 85% of them within three years or face further penalties.

What did Cummins own up to?

Nothing.

Meanwhile, the consent decree states that Cummins denied the allegations and admitted no liability. Later, it repeats that Cummins’ agreement did not constitute an admission of the violations alleged by the regulators.

Of course, that legal position was available to Cummins. Settlements routinely include denial language. TCAP can read a consent decree without eating the pages.

However, Cummins cannot strut into its own podcast studio afterwards and advertise rapid admission, responsibility and accountability as the beauty of the company without somebody opening the other fucking file.

Therefore, the legal right to deny is not a moral achievement.

No evidence of bad faith.

Still no admission of wrongdoing.

Please enjoy the accountability podcast.

A Century Of Mining Gets Another Corporate Funeral Procession

Meanwhile, once the accidental confession has escaped, the podcast returns to the centenary display cabinet.

First, Cummins begins in 1926 with a four-cylinder Model F engine powering a Northwest Engineering excavator. Then the story marches through turbocharging, fuel systems, mechanical engines, electronic controls, emissions technology, remote diagnostics and finally a 4,400-horsepower QSK95 working in Latin American copper mines.

Essentially, it is the familiar Cummins trick: arrange a century of engineering milestones behind the current leadership and hope some of the competence sticks to the suits.

Moreover, TCAP has already autopsied this mining centenary. In January, Cummins wheeled out the legacy story, the heritage engine and the promise that it would stop at nothing. In July, the newsroom repackaged months-old mining announcements under a fresh date and tripped over its own calendar.

Consequently, the same centenary has now returned as a podcast.

New format. Same corpse. Different shovel.

In effect, Corporate Communications has discovered circular mining. Old material goes into the content pit, gets crushed into a podcast, then emerges as a fresh newsroom commodity with another date stamped on the side.

Indeed, that may qualify as Cummins’ most successful recycling programme.

Nevertheless, this edition adds one genuinely valuable mineral: the claim that Cummins owns its messes. Unfortunately for Cummins, TCAP found it before the corporate refinery could remove the impurities.

Destination Zero Finds Another Diesel Lay-By

Meanwhile, the episode contains a more useful admission about the future.

For example, the mining industry spent several years chasing a lower-carbon transformation. According to Adewunmi, it has learned that no single solution currently delivers zero-carbon operation for the largest equipment. The technology lacks maturity, infrastructure remains insufficient and the economics do not yet meet miners’ demands for cost and reliability.

Consequently, miners have stepped back.

However, they have not stepped back because they stopped caring, we are assured. The solutions simply do not work at the required scale yet.

Finally, Cummins arrives at the commercial point: diesel will remain in mining for longer than the industry expected five years ago.

Well, paint Destination Zero on another fucking sign and move it ten miles down the road.

Moreover, Cummins says it will continue investing in its current products. Better still, Adewunmi teases a new engine for haul trucks and excavators, with more information promised in the coming months.

And there it is.

As a result, the zero-carbon home run has not materialised, the miners have stepped away and Cummins has another diesel-class engine waiting behind the curtain.

This is not evidence that Cummins caused the technological barriers. Heavy mining equipment presents real and difficult decarbonisation problems. It does, however, expose the commercial comfort sitting underneath the transition sermon.

Meanwhile, Cummins can sell the destination while continuing to make money from the delay.

Its proposed pathways begin with ethanol-diesel dual fuel and diesel-battery hybrid equipment. In other words, the road away from diesel currently contains quite a lot of fucking diesel.

No bad faith.

Just a scenic route with an engine catalogue.

The Podcast About Not Hiding Disappears From The Visible Newsroom

Finally, the newsroom supplies the last joke.

Although the podcast page remains live, the transcript sits outside the visible feed behind its direct URL. On 6 August, A Century Of Digging Deep did not appear among the items shown on the main European newsroom page.

For example, Cummins India’s 5 August results appeared at the top. The 4 August releases appeared in their section. The mining podcast dated 5 August did not.

Perhaps the regional index malfunctioned. Perhaps the cache had a funny turn. Maybe the newsroom classification system was designed by a parrot with a date stamp. Alternatively, somebody decided this particular tile did not need to remain prominent after all.

TCAP cannot prove motive from an absent newsroom card. Therefore, we will not pretend we can.

However, what we can prove is funnier.

The main newsroom showed 2,509 results, exposed another 5 August item and omitted the podcast title. Meanwhile, the supposedly missing article remained live elsewhere on Cummins’ own website, complete with transcript.

Indeed, the episode says mining is where you cannot hide.

Afterwards, the episode hides from the visible newsroom.

Welcome to dependability backed by expertise.

Bring an archaeologist.

Cummins Did Not Legally Confess – It Did Something More Stupid

Importantly, Adewunmi did not admit the government’s emissions allegations. He spoke generally about supporting mining customers when products or relationships fall short. The podcast is not a legal confession, and TCAP will not dress it up as one.

Instead, it is a cultural admission.

Cummins understands that owning failure builds trust. Its vice-president can explain the principle clearly, repeat it confidently and present it as a defining corporate virtue. Therefore, the company cannot claim ignorance of what accountability looks like.

Cummins knows.

Consequently, that makes the absence more damning.

When a customer experiences a technical low, Cummins apparently arrives, accepts responsibility and fixes the problem. When regulators describe defeat devices across hundreds of thousands of trucks, however, the language changes. Suddenly there is no bad faith, no wrongdoing and no liability. The mess remains, but the owner evaporates.

In short, Cummins wants credit for accountability in the abstract and legal insulation in the specific.

It wants the halo without the apology.

Trust without confession would also be lovely.

Finally, it wants a century of corporate virtue with every scandal stored in a separate, unlabelled shaft.

Therefore, “owning up to our messes” is not merely an amusing podcast line. It is an accidental description of the standard Cummins knows it should meet and repeatedly refuses to apply when the mess becomes expensive, public or legally radioactive.

TCAP has yet to find the grand public apology matching this grand public boast.

Perhaps it is buried in the newsroom.

Luckily, TCAP had already marked the dig site. Sorry about that, Cummins bros.

The TCAP Verdict

Ultimately, Cummins produced a podcast to celebrate a century in mining.

Instead, it recorded a corporate character witness, forgot which side had called him and left the transcript online.

In short, Adewunmi says Cummins owns its messes. The emissions record says Cummins denied the allegations, admitted no liability and announced that it had found no evidence of bad faith.

Therefore, both statements now exist.

First, there is how Cummins markets itself when the microphone is soft and the questions are internal.

By contrast, there is how Cummins behaves when the numbers reach nearly one million vehicles and two billion dollars.

Consequently, that gap is the whole fucking company.

Dependability in the brochure.

Denial in the decree.

Accountability in the podcast.

Nobody responsible when the air turns brown.

No bad faith, of course.

No wrongdoing, naturally.

Still no public apology matching the boast, anywhere TCAP can find. Not one. Truly.

Just Cummins, standing on a century of messes and congratulating itself for owning the shovel.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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