[samwillis]

Sure, and Tesla at $33.74B.

But VWs debt is mostly due to them operating as a bank that sells loans to their customers to buy their cars. So it's more nuanced than just folding the into the calculation. Most other car manufactures don't do that directly.

Point is that in broad strokes it doesn't add up.

[repsilat]

So Tesla's enterprise value is $426.5 billion and VW's is $473.9 billion?

Regarding the "operating as a bank", are we talking about net debt? I'd guess that if VW loaned money to customers those loans would be assets, right? They wouldn't get the cash from the customer, but they'd get something that looks about as good for their balance sheet hopefully?

[bryanlarsen]

The Enterprise Value calculations subtract cash from debt to determine the net debt level. Most think you should also subtract customer receivables as well. In VW's case that is about $150B. So VW's true enterprise value is closer to $300B in my opinion.

[pas]

right, but they get the financing for those loans from other banks or from the bond market. they can't just make cars from thin air after all :)

[bryanlarsen]

Yes, VW does have about $200B in current assets and about $85B in financial services receivables, but that still leaves them with a massive chunk of "real debt" larger than their market cap.

Unfortunately the standard ratios only subtract cash from debt when doing this calculation so this calculation is one you have to do manually if you want to fairly compare car companies.

[fbergen]

Wouldn't Price to Book (P/B) sort this out?