financially, they are making small profits again.Ford is always stating profit predictions that never come true. When is the last time Ford turned a profit .... 10 years? Meanwhile Toyota made 12 BILLION profit for period ending March 31/08.
Toyota, the largest Japanese carmaker, posted a 17.2 percent jump in net profit to a record ¥1.37 trillion, or $12.32 billion, in the fiscal year that ended on March 31, enough to make it the world's most profitable manufacturing company. Toyota is also the world's 10thmost-profitable publicly traded corporation of any sort, behind Microsoft. 
Automotive News Europe
May 23, 2008 06:01 CET
UPDATED: 5/22/08 12:45 p.m. EDT
Ford Motor said Thursday it is making sweeping cuts to North American production and
retreated from earlier profit outlooks, now saying it doesn't know how soon it expects North America to be profitable.Ford said it is cutting production in North America by 15 percent in the second quarter from the same period a year ago, dropping output by 20,000 units to 690,000 vehicles.
The automaker also said it plans to build between 510,000 and 540,000 units in the third quarter, down 15 to 20 percent from the same period last year. Fourth-quarter production is expected to be between 590,000 and 630,000 units, down as much as 8 percent from a year ago.
"The challenge affecting the entire industry is the accelerating shift in consumer demand away from large trucks and SUVs to smaller cars and crossovers -- combined with a steep rise in commodity prices and the weak U.S. economy," CEO Alan Mulally said in a statement.
Ford surprised the industry by turning a first-quarter profit earlier this year and had said several times that it was on track to return to profitability in 2009. But the automaker took a step back today from its earlier outlook.
Mulally told a group of reporters in a teleconference that the company is gathering more data and trying to get a solid idea of how U.S. customer demand will shake out. He said Ford will say more in July about its profit projections for North American operations.
"Unless there is a fairly rapid turnaround in U.S. business conditions, which we are not anticipating, it now looks like it will take longer than expected to achieve our North American automotive profitability goal," Mulally said in the company statement.
Executives said today that they now expect North America and the entire automotive business to post a loss in 2009. They said they expect the total company to break even in 2009 before taxes and special charges. With charges and taxes, Ford now is likely to post a net loss in 2009.
