When Ford Motor Co. (NYSE: F) reports its fourth quarter earnings this Thursday, the U.S. automaker is widely expected to post yet another huge loss. Although Ford may have been called a leading manufacturing expert in the past, the slow pace of its turnaround will continue hurting it for at least all of 2008. CEO Alan Mulally's Way Forward plan is making progress, but people are buying less cars due to a slowing economy -- and Ford has just as much competition now as it ever had.

Ford investors are well aware of this as shares in the automaker are already sitting at 16-year lows. This week's earnings results won't change it for the better, as analysts expect a loss of $0.20 per share on sales of $38.3 billion. It's not just Ford that will suffer soon. Analyst David Silver said, "November and December were just horrible months for auto sales in the U.S." Encouraging words? Well, maybe not.

Although Asia and Central America sales may be a sweet spot for Ford this Thursday, its domestic sales may continue the slide they saw in the Q3 period, when Ford lost a billion greenbacks in the U.S. market. It was 2007 and Ford still considered trucks and SUVs to be the heart of its product lineup. Trouble is, consumers are running away screaming from those product lines due to shabby fuel economy figures. A bright spot continues to be the Ford Edge, an SUV crossover (or, CUV) that is selling very well for Ford. It has car-like handling, SUV-like storage and car-like gas mileage. Go figure -- customers are swallowing them up. It still can't rescue Ford from many more quarters of lackluster performance.