Ford reported a $6.6 billion profit for 2010, its highest  in more than 10 years. This year, they could add $13 billion to the profit line, without selling an extra car. How will Ford pull off the miracle of the loaves and profits? With a simple bookkeeping entry. (Read More…)

Toyota’s Senior Managing Director Takahiko Ijichi had a surprise for the press that congregated today in the windowless basement conference room of Toyota’s downtown Tokyo office. They were invited to hear the results of the 9 month period from April to December. The scribes had prepared for the worst. As the numbers were released, some furiously begun retyping the prepared stories in which they had planned to insert the expected bad numbers before hitting SEND. Instead, Reuters reports: “The world’s top automaker posted a smaller-than-expected fall in third quarter profits and hiked its sales forecast for the year to March 31 by 70,000 vehicles to 7.48 million, thanks to better than expected sales in Asia, Japan and Russia.” (Read More…)

On Friday, Ford will show something it didn’t have for a long time: Money, and lots of it. The Freep thinks that Ford will report a profit for 2010 of about $8 billion excluding onetime charges. That would be the biggest annual profit Ford saw in a decade. (Read More…)

When Tata bought Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) from Ford in 2008, the general consensus was that Ford was off-loading a massive problem, and that Tata should have their collective heads examined. JLR had been nothing but a cash drain on Ford. Sucking up resources which other divisions (cough-Lincoln-cough) sorely needed. The Jaguar brand was damaged due to the X-Type “fiasco” (note the inverted commas, because I still love my X-Type!) and Land Rover wasn’t really held in much higher regard. Even I, a big Jag-fan, had to concede that I was seeing the final days of JLR. How wrong was I? (Read More…)

When GM was in its final throes (about 2000 onwards) it was quite easy to see that GM would go under. Even though they were posting records profits, anyone but the shills knew that these profits came from the SUV boom and not from any long term sustainable plan. That’s fair to say, right? So now let’s move to Toyota. The cry I hear, these days, is “Toyota is the new GM! Toyota is the new GM!” (Why people have to say things twice, I’ve no idea. I’m not deaf, just stupid.) And there is certainly some evidence to suggest that. Piling on the incentives, suspect quality, etc. But then something comes along which, seemingly, blows that theory out of the water. (Read More…)

Volkswagen is rolling in money. In the first nine months, VW registered an after tax profit of more than €4b ($5.57b). No funky EBITA, no “gains before restructuring charges,” straight bankable after tax profit. That’s six times the €655m the company reported in the same period of the prior year. (While most other car makers reported hefty losses.) (Read More…)

According to popular wisdom, you can invest all you want into China, but you can’t take your money out. Not so, says Gasgoo. As a matter of fact, would it not be for China, the bottom line of many a car company would look ugly.

Volkswagen for instance gained nearly half of its pretax profit from the Chinese market in the first quarter of this year. (Read More…)

While Japanese automakers are digging in for the big sales drop at home, caused by the evaporating government stimulus money, all eyes are across the China Sea. A large share of this year’s profits will come from China, says The Nikkei [sub]. (Read More…)

ToMoCo is keeping the suspense up on their long awaited and hotly rumored first quarter profit numbers. Daihatsu has reported stellar numbers. Hino has reported a nice set of financials. Now, “nine major Toyota Motor Corp. group companies all reported group net profits in the April-June quarter thanks to a recovery in the auto industry,” says The Nikkei [sub]. No word yet from the mother ship. EMCON. Strict radio silence. (Read More…)

How things change: Last year, the death of the automobile was prognosticated. Maybe little cheap econoboxes. Luxury cars? Forget it, dead as dinosaurs. Don’t even mention dinosaurs. This year … just have a look at Audi. (Read More…)

Did we mention that there is a remake of the economic miracle in Europe going on? Despite tanking car sales, despite daily stories about near bankrupt EU-countries, European manufacturers are in high gear. Did we mention that despite imploding sales at home, Volkswagen delivered 16 percent more units to customers in the first six months of 2010? One would think that might have some bearing on VeeDub’s financials. It sure did. (Read More…)

The market took note when little Daihatsu announced  that its group net profit jumped 460 percent year on year to 19.9 billion yen ($227m) in the April-June quarter of the Japanese fiscal year.  Daihatsu is a Toyota company, and the market is eagerly expecting Toyota’s results. (Read More…)

Toyota Motor Corp. is expected to report a group operating profit of about 100 billion yen ($1.14b) for the April-June period, The Nikkei [sub]. That would be a huge improvement over the same quarter loss of 194.8 billion yen ($2.23b) in 2009. In case you are wondering about the strange quarters: Japan goes by the fiscal year that ends on March 31. The April-June period is the first quarter of the new year, and times are good at TMC. (Read More…)

So Tesla lost $30m last quarter. Do you know who made $20m in profits on Tesla in one day? (Read More…)

In the first nine months of the current fiscal year Porsche sold slighty fewer cars than in the same period of the previous year. But they made more money: They are looking at operating profits of €0.6b  on sales of €5.2b. That’s a double digit operating profit, ladies and gentlemen, and none of the put and call hanky-panky is included. Now what do you think is the catalyst for the wunderbar numbers? Are you sitting down? (Read More…)