Is Xpeng Inc. (XPEV) a good stock to buy?
What we have tested leans negative. To like it anyway you need a reason our checks do not capture.
What each rating means, in numbers
Business quality — Middling. Passes 6 of the 9 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.
How wild is the price? — Wild. The share price swings about 54% in a typical year, which puts it in the above average. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 3.7 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.9% to 5.7%.
What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100
Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.
The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.
Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.
The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.
Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.
▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend). It excludes the Altman Z score, whose retained-earnings input this filer does not report separately. See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.
Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.
Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about XPEV — see the board for how it is measured.
📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first
How to read XPEV (pre-profit growth)
This company is reinvesting instead of generating profit, so a standard DCF cannot price it. The useful question is whether the growth the market is paying for is achievable — and whether the company can fund itself until then.
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Reverse-DCF — the growth the price demands ↓
It shows exactly how fast the business must grow to justify today's price. Compare that to what comparable companies have actually achieved.
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Cash runway ↓
Can it reach profitability before it has to raise money and dilute shareholders?
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Interactive calculator ↓
Set your own growth + margin assumptions and see what the business would be worth if you are right.
Standard DCF doesn't fit XPEV well — but that's expected for this kind of business. The Rule of 40 (Pre-Profit Growth) Lens below uses the metrics actually used by analysts who value auto manufacturers. Reverse DCF + Football Field also work as cross-checks.
Who owns XPEV, and how it moves
From the SEC's own filings: every fund manager over $100M reports its holdings each quarter, and every officer and director reports theirs. Each point is what was public at the time.
How does XPEV stack up against its closest peers?
We take the 7 same- or closely-related-industry companies closest in size to XPEV and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If XPEV is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, EV/EBIT and FCF yield (both in the table) are usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.
▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?
EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.
EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).
p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.
| EV / SalesEV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt). Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices. Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding Full explanation → |
0.8x / 0.9x / 3.0x |
| EV / Gross ProfitEV / Gross Profit — Enterprise value divided by gross profit — the multiple paid for what each dollar of sales contributes after direct costs. Why it matters: More refined than EV/Sales for high-margin businesses (software, marketplaces) where gross margin is the real economic engine. Reference: 8–15x for SaaS · 15–25x for hypergrowth software · >30x demanding Full explanation → |
5.2x / 8.2x / 14.6x |
| EV / EBITEV / EBITDA — Enterprise value divided by earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization. Why it matters: A classic "what would a private buyer pay" multiple — used in M&A. Strips out tax and capital-structure noise. Reference: 8–12x for mature businesses · 15–25x for growth · Below 5x often signals distress Full explanation → |
10.2x / 16.6x / 31.2x |
Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 7 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.
⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.
▾ View peer list (8)
| Ticker | Company | Industry | Mcap | EV/Sales | EV/GP | EV/EBIT | FCF Yield |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NIO | NIO Inc. | Auto Manufacturers | $9.1B | 0.8x | 6.1x | — | 0.3% |
| OSK | OSHKOSH CORP | Auto Manufacturers | $8.4B | 0.9x | 5.2x | 10.2x | 3.4% |
| VFS | VinFast Auto Ltd. | Auto Manufacturers | $8.2B | 5.4x | — | — | 0.3% |
| STLA | Stellantis N.V. | Auto Manufacturers | $13.4B | 0.4x | — | — | 68.5% |
| FSS | FEDERAL SIGNAL CORP /DE/ | Auto Manufacturers | $6.5B | 3.0x | 10.3x | 19.1x | 2.4% |
| MOD | MODINE MANUFACTURING CO | Motor Vehicles | $10.3B | 3.4x | 14.6x | 31.2x | 1.1% |
| APTV | Aptiv PLC | Motor Vehicles | $9.3B | 0.8x | — | 14.2x | 9.7% |
| ALSN | Allison Transmission Holdings Inc | Motor Vehicles ·fallback | $9.4B | 4.1x | 8.4x | 13.9x | 6.2% |
Quality & solvency checks
Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.
What these health ratings mean, in numbers
Business quality — Middling. Passes 6 of the 9 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
We can't produce a trustworthy Altman Z here: retained earnings weren't separately reported in our data, so a core input would have to be fabricated. Rather than show a categorical "distress" verdict from an invented number, we mark it unavailable. Judge financial health from the leverage, cash position, and the measurable Piotroski checks instead.
Read with caution for this industry. Automakers (and airlines) run a large captive finance arm, which inflates total assets and liabilities and depresses Altman Z — it routinely reads "distress" even for investment-grade names with full access to capital markets. Treat it as one input, not a literal bankruptcy probability. Weigh it against the company's cash position, near-term debt maturities, and where it sits in the economic cycle.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
▾ The checks — what passed, what didn't (and what we couldn't measure)
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✗ Positive net incomeNet income -$158.5M in FY2025.Why this matters: Does the company actually earn a profit? Sustained losses eventually force it to raise money — diluting you — or take on debt.
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✓ Positive operating cash flowOperating cash flow $1,149.1M (was -$279.7M the prior year).
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✓ Cash flow backs up reported profitOperating cash flow $1,149.1M vs net income -$158.5M.
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✓ Return on assets improvingReturn on assets -1.1% vs -7.1% a year ago.
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✓ Debt load (vs assets)Long-term debt is 6.4% of assets vs 6.8% a year ago ($941.2M of $14,735.8M assets).
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✗ Short-term liquidity (current ratio)Current ratio 1.09x vs 1.25x a year ago.Why this matters: The current ratio compares assets it can turn to cash within a year against bills due within a year. Below 1.0 means it may struggle to cover near-term obligations.
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✗ Share count (dilution)Share count rose 0.7% (1,891.4M → 1,904.0M year-over-year).Why this matters: Issuing lots of new shares splits the pie into more pieces, shrinking your slice. Stable or falling share count protects existing owners.
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✓ Pricing power (gross margin)Gross margin 18.9% vs 14.3% a year ago.
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✓ Sales per asset (asset turnover)Asset turnover 0.72x vs 0.50x a year ago.
Missing data is never counted as a pass or a fail — it's shown as n/a and excluded from the denominator. Each check compares the company against its own prior year.
What if you assume different inputs?
Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount RateDiscount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation → (the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 10.0%, the figure our model used for XPEV. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.
Note: no headline intrinsic value is published for this stock (the valuation is held for a data-quality reason — see the notes above). The calculator below is a what-if tool: the values it produces are your assumptions played out, not our estimate.
A full intrinsic value isn't shown for XPEV because the valuation is currently held for a data-quality reason (see the guardrail notes above). The reverse-DCF reading still works — it needs only the price and cash flow — but we won't publish a forward value until the underlying data passes our checks.
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⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
XPENG INC. The market is paying up for significant future growth potential, likely in advanced EV technology and autonomous driving, which are not fully captured by backward-looking models. The biggest risk that our model's base assumptions prove too HIGH is that operating cash flow, which was positive in only 2/5 years, does not stabilize or grow as modeled.
As of today
Anatomy of a share
What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.
What's free cash flow / what do these mean?
Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.
Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.
Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.
Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.
What you actually need to decide
Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.
- Next quarter's vehicle delivery numbers and revenue growth
- Trends in gross margin and operating cash flow
- Progress in autonomous driving technology deployment and adoption
The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)
Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.
- Revenue grew +88% to $10.67B.
- Free cash flow turned positive at $631.5M.
- Gross margin improved to 19% (+5 pts).
- Still unprofitable at -$158.5M — loss narrowing.
Nothing was clearly worsening year-over-year.
Management & Leadership
Xiaopeng He serves as Chairman & CEO, with Brian Hongdi Gu as Vice Chairman & Co-President. Jiaming Wu is the VP Finance & Accounting, and Fengying Wang is the President. The company's leadership is focused on the automotive sector.
Chairman & CEO
Vice Chairman & Co-President
What They Make
XPENG INC. designs, develops, manufactures, and markets smart electric vehicles. Their paying customers are consumers purchasing these vehicles.
End Markets
Revenue Drivers
Why Is It Priced Like This?
Why Customers Pay
What we use instead: earnings (P/E, EV/EBIT), book value (P/B) — computed from the figures this company does report, shown in the sections below. Those numbers are unaffected by the missing cash-flow data.
The market prices XPENG INC. This optimism is supported by revenue growing at 34.6%/yr over 4 years and expanding gross margins (12.5% to 18.9%). The market may be assigning value to the potential for significant market share gains in the rapidly expanding EV sector and advancements in autonomous driving technology, which are not in the model.
Business Model & Valuation
How They Make Money
The company has negative net income and relies on external funding, with long-term debt rising from $264M to $941M, and cash and short-term investments at $2.5 billion.
Normalized FCF
Cyclical/commodity sector (Auto Manufacturers): normalized FCF uses 5-year median to smooth peak/trough distortions.
Show advanced inputs
| Revenue Growth | 22.8% |
| Sector Default | 8.0% |
| Sector Default Source | Consumer Cyclical sector default |
| Best Estimate | 12.4% |
| Method | blend(30% revenue_cagr, 70% sector) |
| Growth Basis | total |
What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings cash-flow model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project its revenue segments independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.
Maturity & Competitive Position
Moat Signals
Revenue has been growing at 34.6%/yr over the last four years, from $3254M to $10.7 billion.
Geography & Markets
Geographic Risks
Market Signals
These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.
Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
Full explanation → (14)43.3NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
Full explanation →BullishLine above signalThe fast trend is above the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently upward.
Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.
QUALITY
Data Quality & Risk Flags (8 notes — click to expand/collapse)
Guardrail Notes (6)
- Median OCF is negative — OCF-based normalization not applicable.
- Normalized OCF-capex was negative. Falling back to median raw FCF.
- No positive normalized FCF. Using EPS as proxy.
- Growth capped at 8.0%/yr for this normalized-cyclical model (the blended estimate was 12.4%). Through-cycle cash flow of a cyclical business does not compound at peak-year rates, so this route caps stage-1 growth at 8% by rule.
- Model implies no positive equity value under these assumptions. Valuation is speculative/low-confidence.
- Extreme valuation gap (P/IV withheld — see the note above): result may be dominated by model assumptions, share count issues, or sector-specific dynamics. Treat as low confidence.
FINANCIALS
Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)
From Xpeng Inc.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).
Income (5yr)
| Year | Revenue | Net Income | EPS |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 10.7B | -158.5M | $-0.60 |
| 2024 | 5.7B | -804.8M | $-3.06 |
| 2023 | 4.3B | -1.5B | $-5.96 |
| 2022 | 4.0B | -1.4B | $5.34 |
| 2021 | 3.3B | -754.1M | $-0.46 |
Cash Flow (5yr)
| Year | Operating CF | CapEx | − SBC | Free Cash Flow |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 1.1B | 439.1M | 78.5M | 631.5M |
| 2024 | -279.7M | 309.4M | 65.8M | -655.0M |
| 2023 | 135.1M | 296.1M | 77.8M | -238.8M |
| 2022 | -1.2B | 636.3M | 105.7M | -2.0B |
| 2021 | -169.7M | 356.6M | 58.9M | -585.2M |
How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 1.1B − 439.1M − 78.5M (stock-based comp) = 631.5M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a mid-cycle estimate (median operating cash flow less estimated maintenance capex and stock compensation — by design NOT the table's FCF, which deducts every year's full capex), not this single year.
Balance Sheet
| Total Assets | 14.7B |
| Total Liabilities | 10.4B |
| Equity | 4.3B |
| Total Debt | 1.8B |
Similar companies worth a look
Same sector and industry, similar fundamentals shape. Verify everything yourself — this list is computed mechanically and does not reflect our judgment about whether any of these are a good investment.
The questions people ask about XPEV
Is Xpeng Inc. (XPEV) a good stock to buy?
We do not publish a single fair value for Xpeng Inc., because one number would not be reliable for this business (the page explains why). Judge it on what today's price assumes, its financial-health checks and what insiders are doing, all shown here from SEC filings. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
Is Xpeng Inc. (XPEV) overvalued?
A single fair-value number is not reliable for Xpeng Inc., so we do not call it overvalued or undervalued. The page shows what growth today's price assumes and how the company's finances look instead. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.
What growth is priced into XPEV?
Working backwards from today's price, the market expects XPEV's cash flow per share to grow by roughly 100.0% a year over the next five years. Compare that with the company's actual record on this page.
Where do these numbers come from?
From Xpeng Inc.'s own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.