Remember, remember, the fifth of November. Gunpowder, treason and Accelera’s loss. Cummins has chosen Bonfire Night to announce record earnings, which is wonderfully appropriate for a corporation that has spent years setting fire to its zero-emissions ambitions while the old diesel empire continues printing money. Shareholders have their fireworks, Jennifer Rumsey has her record profits, and Accelera is standing beside the wheelie bin dressed as Guy Fawkes, wondering whether anybody remembered to remove the fucking matches. After more than $3 billion in cumulative EBITDA losses, perhaps it’s time to throw the green effigy onto the bonfire. Before shareholders start asking whether the chief executive should follow it out of the boardroom.
Penny For The Guy? Three Billion, Please
British children once dragged straw-stuffed effigies around their neighbourhoods demanding pennies for Guy Fawkes. Cummins developed a considerably more elaborate version, complete with hydrogen electrolysers, battery systems, electric drivetrains and an entire marketing department dedicated to making the industrial combustion economy appear to be undergoing a spiritual awakening.
The resulting creation was Accelera, a supposed flagship of the Destination Zero revolution. To TCAP, it has always looked rather like an expensive green fig leaf attached to an enormously profitable fossil-fuel business. The technologies themselves were real, certainly, but so was their usefulness in polishing the reputation of a corporation whose diesel engines had attracted rather less flattering attention from American environmental regulators.
In 2024, Cummins agreed to a $1.675 billion civil penalty over allegations involving illegal diesel emissions defeat devices and undisclosed emissions-control software. The company settled without admitting wrongdoing. Meanwhile, its zero-emissions business was accumulating losses at a rate that eventually made the environmental settlement look like an unusually economical corporate embarrassment.
At this rate, the defeat devices were a better business decision than Accelera. Not a morally defensible one, obviously, and a regulatory penalty is not directly comparable with cumulative segment EBITDA losses. Nevertheless, the irony is exquisite. The diesel scandal produced an enormous financial penalty. The green redemption story has produced an even larger accumulated EBITDA deficit.
Apparently, environmental contrition comes with optional extras.
The Nine Billion Dollar Catherine Wheel
In May 2024, Cummins presented investors with a glorious vision. Accelera would generate between $3 billion and $9 billion in annual revenue by 2030, with EBITDA breakeven targeted for 2027. The electrolyser business alone was projected to contribute between $1 billion and $5 billion of that future revenue.
It was a magnificent display of financial pyrotechnics, the sort of corporate optimism that makes a Catherine wheel look like a carefully controlled engineering experiment. Unfortunately, hydrogen customers did not arrive in the anticipated numbers, the market deteriorated, and those beautiful projections began resembling the instructions from a firework somebody had already dropped into a puddle.
Cummins recorded $458 million in charges associated with its electrolyser actions during 2025, before disposing of its low-pressure fuel-cell business in early 2026 through arrangements involving a $175 million net payment by Cummins and a $199 million accounting charge. The company also retreated from pursuing new commercial activity in electrolysers, while honouring existing commitments.
Somewhere along the way, Destination Zero became considerably less about reaching zero emissions and considerably more about reducing the number of zeros appearing in the losses column.
Record Profits, Meet Your Embarrassing Green Cousin
The latest earnings release is a commercial triumph for Cummins. Third-quarter revenue reached $9.4 billion, net income climbed to $1.14 billion, and EBITDA hit a record $1.786 billion. Power Systems alone generated $582 million in EBITDA, helped by booming demand for power-generation equipment serving data centres.
Accelera, meanwhile, managed $103 million in quarterly sales and another $56 million EBITDA loss. Revenue fell 15% against the comparable quarter, primarily because electrolyser sales declined following the strategic review.
Management will undoubtedly point out that the losses are improving. Fair enough. Excluding $240 million in exceptional Accelera charges from the third quarter of 2025, the comparable loss was $96 million. Reducing it to $56 million represents genuine progress.
But reducing the financial consequences of a disappointing commercial strategy is not the same as demonstrating that the strategy has suddenly become successful. Cummins has reduced expenditure, narrowed its portfolio and withdrawn from unsuccessful commitments. Very sensible, but perhaps somebody should have considered the truly revolutionary alternative of developing commercially competitive products and selling enough of the fucking things to make a profit.
There is also a small ingredient in the headline fireworks worth examining. Last year’s quarter contained those substantial Accelera impairment charges, while this year’s earnings benefited from favourable discrete tax items worth $0.54 per diluted share. Cummins disclosed both, and its strong operational performance is undeniable. But an exceptionally flattering comparison becomes slightly less miraculous once you inspect the spent cartridges.
Nine Billion Dollars Finds A New Home
Here comes the particularly magnificent irony. By May 2026, Cummins was no longer providing a segment-specific 2030 financial target for Accelera. The previous $3 billion to $9 billion revenue projection had effectively disappeared from the current investor presentation without an equivalent replacement.
Yet another $9 billion ambition had emerged elsewhere in the corporation.
At its 2026 Analyst Day, Cummins outlined a target of approximately $9 billion in annual data-centre-related revenue by 2030. That opportunity is substantially underpinned by conventional power-generation equipment, including diesel standby systems, alongside developing natural-gas and energy-storage offerings.
The two forecasts cover different markets and should not be confused. Nevertheless, consider the exquisite choreography. Cummins once presented a multibillion-dollar future centred on zero-emissions technology. Now another multibillion-dollar future is being promoted around the industrial power systems that help keep its traditional business prosperous.
The green revolution has lost its financial spotlight. Diesel generators have apparently bought the fucking theatre.
Strategic Rethink? Try Thinking About Profit
So what exactly emerged from the strategic rethink?
Cummins says Accelera will concentrate on batteries, electric axles and traction systems. Management has explained that these remaining businesses generate positive gross margins but require greater sales volumes to support the wider operation. Research expenditure has been reduced, capital is being redirected, and the company intends to match further investment to actual customer demand.
All perfectly reasonable decisions. Indeed, the remarkable question is why such elementary commercial discipline required such an expensive education.
At its May 2026 Analyst Day, Cummins declined to provide a replacement segment-specific 2030 target. Therefore, shareholders still lack a comparable financial forecast against which to assess the diminished enterprise. Does the original 2027 EBITDA breakeven ambition survive? What revenue is now expected by 2030? How much additional investment will be required before Accelera can stand on its own feet?
These questions deserve something better than another sermon about disciplined investment. Shareholders were previously presented with detailed financial expectations, not a vague suggestion that everything might improve once customers eventually develop an appetite for expensive technology.
Perhaps the strategic rethink should have considered making good products that customers actually want to buy in sufficient numbers to deliver a fucking profit. An outrageous concept, admittedly, but considerably less revolutionary than repeatedly adjusting the corporate forecast until the losses look respectable.
Remember, Remember
TCAP was examining Accelera’s financial difficulties before Cummins completed its subsequent hydrogen retreat. We have since documented the restructuring, the abandoned commercial ambitions and the extraordinary cumulative cost of the zero-emissions experiment.
Now, on Bonfire Night, the wider corporation is celebrating record earnings while its green flagship remains a comparatively tiny, loss-making operation whose original financial ambitions no longer feature in the same form.
The contrast deserves recognition. Cummins is an exceptionally capable industrial business when established products meet demonstrable customer demand. Its latest figures prove that. What they do not establish is that the elaborate environmental future once marketed through Accelera has delivered the commercial transformation investors were invited to anticipate.
Jennifer Rumsey has every reason to celebrate the corporation’s financial success. She also has every reason to explain what became of Accelera’s original projections, what replaces them and how management intends to demonstrate accountability for the billions accumulated along the way.
Perhaps it really is time to consign the failed ambitions to the bonfire before shareholders begin asking harder questions about the leadership that promoted them.
Guy Fawkes failed to overthrow the establishment. Accelera has failed, so far, to deliver the financial revolution its architects envisaged.
The difference is that Guy only needed 36 barrels of gunpowder to make an enormous fucking spectacle of himself.
Cummins needed billions.
Now, Jennifer, tell us what the new Accelera strategy is supposed to deliver.
But this time, hold the fucking fireworks.
Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project