#EarningsReport

The last few years have certainly been interesting for Nissan. After clawing its way back from financial disaster in the early 2000s, the company endured one of the most high-profile and scandal-ridden management shakeups in automotive history by 2018. It also became desperately unprofitable while incurring negative growth, with the remaining leadership deploying an aggressive restructuring plan designed to help get the business back on track.

Those efforts appear to have been successful.

Honda reported a $765 million loss in the fiscal quarter ending June 30th, a marked downturn in its financial standing when compared to the quarter before.

Hardly shocking, though, given the virus-related global sales plunge and the production shutdown that afflicted the American manufacturing scene in April and May. Honda’s characterizing it as a “nowhere to go but up” scenario.

Ford Motor Company made many investors happy on Thursday, reporting a less-than-feared loss in the second-quarter of 2020.

Despite the company’s chief financial officer predicting a Q2 loss of $5 billion or more three months ago, the automaker’s actual earnings before interest and taxes was only in the red $1.9 billion — a minor miracle given the stormy backdrop.

General Motors’ second-quarter earnings report is out, and there’s red ink to report.

Hammered by the coronavirus-related shutdown of its domestic manufacturing facilities and a corresponding sales slide, the automaker reported an $800 million loss in Q2 — a far cry from the rosy, $2.42 billion profit it saw a year earlier.

GM’s cash burn was also a five-alarm affair, but one element of the report was hardly depressing at all: the company’s Chinese sales.

The fiscal year that wrapped up at the end of March was not a good one for Mazda, the company claims, with profit cut almost in half amid fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday, Mazda revealed a full-year operating profit of just $408 million — its lowest showing in 8 years.

Smaller than its Japanese rivals and heavily dependent on the North American consumer, Mazda was hit hard by lockdown orders that dried up sales in the U.S. and Canada in March.

Call it the coronavirus crash. Ford Motor Company released its first-quarter 2020 financial results late Tuesday, revealing a deep dip into the red as March’s production shutdown and and domestic (and overseas) sales dive ate into earnings.

Free cash flow was negative $2.2 billion last quarter, Ford said, as it reported a net loss of $2 billion. Recall that a big deal was made over the company’s less-than-stellar Q4 2019 earnings report, which carried the weight of recalls and a botched product launch. That report now looks rosy.

As bad as Q1 2020 looks, Ford cautioned investors to brace themselves for an even grimmer Q2.

Nissan can’t catch a break. Instead of the new decade heralding sunnier skies and calmer seas for a financially compromised Nissan, the first quarter of the year (and counting) brought nothing but grief.

Declining sales and shuttered plants spurred by the coronavirus pandemic further destabilized the automaker’s balance sheet. It was the kind of out-of-the-blue event both beancounters and executives feared, occurring just as the automaker was preparing (hoping?) to exit its present crisis with the help of a new CEO and a new plan.

Clearly, that recovery will have to wait, as analysts are now mentioning 2008 in the same sentence as “Nissan.”

Much earlier this year, Ford had the unpleasant task of presenting investors and analysts with an earnings report that reflected two serious headaches. The botched launch (and expensive repair effort) of the 2020 Ford Explorer and Lincoln Aviator weighed heavily on the automaker’s balance sheet in the final quarter of 2019, and a flurry of sizable recalls didn’t help things, either.

Today, Ford’s most pressing issue has nothing to do with quality. In a pre-earnings announcement Monday, the automaker told investors to expect a pretty unpleasant report at the end of the month.

The futuristic world of personal transportation sans ownership was, once again, called into question after Uber posted its largest-ever quarterly loss on Thursday. The $5.2 billion dollar dent was accompanied by a Q2 that also showcased slowed growth, the worst the ride-hailing firm has ever seen.

While Uber attributed a large portion of its losses ($3.9 billion) to the employee stock compensations it needed to issue after its initial public offering in May, the remaining $1.3 billion still represents increased losses over last year’s results. Uber also said it expects to lose $3 billion through the end of 2019.

Despite revenue continuing to grow to roughly $3.1 billion, up 14 percent from last year, it’s the slowest quarterly growth rate in Uber’s history. However, the company claimed that “healthy growth” is what it’s primarily seeking at this time — and made a point of noting so on numerous occasions.

Volvo is planning on reducing fixed costs by 2 billion Swedish kronor. That sounds like a lot, but it’s only about $214 million. While not the largest restructuring plan currently being conducted within the automotive industry, it’s a significant chunk of change for a company the size of Volvo Cars.

The manufacturer is claiming that market pressures are trimming down profits. As a subsidiary of China’s Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, much of Volvo’s business is being impacted by the trade war between the Land of Liberty and People’s Republic. While giving a listen to the automaker’s latest financial report earlier in the day, we learned Volvo operating profit dropped by about 30 percent over the first half of 2019. At least some of that can be attributed directly to its Chinese ties.

Uber’s in a bit of trouble after quarterly losses surged to $1.1 billion dollars. The ride-hailing giant has watched its sales growth dwindle this year, despite an expensive attempt to promote its global expansion.

It’s not the kind of thing you want to see from a company at the forefront of “revolutionizing” the automotive sector, especially since so many automakers seem keen on copying aspects of its business model.

Lately, we’ve been guilty of the same behavior as a lot of other well-rounded and objective automotive publications — bashing Tesla Motors. It hasn’t been done maliciously, but we’d be lying if we said the divisive hype and hate surrounding the company didn’t bother us. However, since the summer launch of the Model 3, a slew of happenings at Tesla have have raised unanswered questions.

The biggest question surrounds the cause of the company’s rather severe production delays. Tesla also fired hundreds of employees this month, without any clear answer as to why, and seems to have shelved a cross-country trip aimed at highlighting the progress made with its Autopilot driver assistance platform.

None of this would be quite so noteworthy if its stock valuation wasn’t still stratospherically high and CEO Elon Musk hadn’t publicly promised so much — but that isn’t the reality we’re living in. Now, with the company reporting its third quarter earnings on Wednesday evening, we’re hoping to get some clarity on what exactly is happening in Fremont, California.