Cummins Confidential : The Hydrogen Hangover

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Cummins is back with another quarterly confession disguised as celebration. $8.3 billion in sales, a 2 percent dip dressed up as “resilience”, and $240 million torched in “non-cash charges” for the Accelera by Cummins division. They may call it a write-off. We call it the future they bet on crashing into the ground.

They call it Accelera. The markets call it a write-off with branding.

Strong Results If You Ignore The Maths

Cummins boasts “strong operating results” while its diesel and data-centre business carry the load. Power Systems – the dirtiest arm of the company – soared 18 percent, driven by backup-power demand for AI’s energy addiction. Diesel engines are still the cash cow, while the “clean” side of the business collapses under its own green rhetoric.

Revenue’s down, profit’s down, guidance suspended – but the dividend? Up again. They can’t promise a future, but they’ll make sure shareholders still get paid.

The Electrolyser Autopsy

In Q4 2024, Cummins recorded a $312 million charge for “strategic reorganization actions” in Accelera. The division posted a $764 million pre-tax loss for the full year 2024, and the company now admits the unit isn’t on pace to break even by 2027.

So no, it isn’t being shut down – but make no mistake: it’s being gutted. Hydrogen, batteries, fuel cells – the smiley headline is there, but the execution is stalled and the memo is written in red ink.

Dirty Growth, Clean Lies

Engines down 11 percent. Components down 15 percent. Distribution up 7 percent. Power Systems up 18 percent. Everything growing is tied to the legacy engine and power-gen business, not the future tech they love to show off. While Accelera bleeds, the rest of the company leans into what still works.

CEO Jennifer Rumsey, absent when it matters but present here, praises “profitable growth” and “effective cost management”. Code for cutting the green dream until diesel pays the bills?

Culture Awards And Other Distractions

To pad out the shame, Cummins lists PR trophies: “Best Place to Work” (until you’re inconvenient), the “Military-Friendly Employer” lie, the pay-to-play “Best for Disability Inclusion” lie. Great, if you’re measuring culture by press releases. An untrained eye might see these casual boasts as rebuttals to recent TCAP criticisms. But we know they don’t care that much about us, right?

Meanwhile, engineers in the zero-emission division are quietly picking through the wreckage. Bought awards don’t scrub CO₂. Fluff doesn’t equal action.

The Verdict

No outlook. No plan. Just another dividend raised and a promise to “revisit guidance in 2026”. Cummins built a brand around decarbonisation, only to admit this quarter that the only part still working is combustion.

Hydrogen’s gone cold. Diesel’s still burning. They might change the name, spin the numbers, and power the world’s servers – but they can’t scrub the soot off their soul.

Lee Thompson – Founder, The Cummins Accountability Project

Sources

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