Front, rear, or 4x4? What types of drive were most often offered in passenger cars in January?

Analysts of the Institute for Car Market Research processed data provided by the aggregator Automoto.ua, which collects information from all sites containing advertisements for the sale of vehicles, and determined the overall picture by drive type, as well as separately for 15 car brands that are most frequently listed in offers for sale. Only newly created advertisements in January 2025, without duplicates, were taken into account.

The overall picture shows the absolute dominance of front-wheel drive cars on the market, which account for over 60%. The “classic” rear-wheel drive in ads has a share of 13%, which is even inferior to versions with all-wheel drive, which account for over 24%.

For individual brands, in particular among the 15 with the most ads, the picture (similar to the fuel review) is heterogeneous, which is due to the historical features of the arrival of a particular brand on our market, as well as its average age.

Rear-wheel drive, which once dominated, is becoming a thing of the past thanks to the invention of mechanisms capable of transmitting rotation to the steering wheels. As already mentioned, its share is the smallest, and from this list, in fact, two manufacturers (in general, there are a few more of them) still adhere to the classic layout — these are BMW and Mercedes-Benz. VAZ also has a considerable share of cars with a rear drive axle — but this is another story, this is not a tribute to traditions, but the presence of outdated designs, produced back when front-wheel drive was only gaining popularity.

Front-wheel drive clearly dominates in most models, for individual brands its share can reach 98.9% (Daewoo) or 95.8% (Renault). The smallest presence of FWD versions is in BMW — buyers of Bavarian products can choose between rear-wheel drive or all-wheel drive (XDrive). With the leading front axle, there is a choice only among individual versions of the 1 Series, 2 Series, X1, X2 and iX1.

The all-wheel drive on the slide attracts attention in Audi — cars with quattro (as the Ingolstadt manufacturer calls its proprietary power distribution system between the wheels) 61%. Firstly, Audi has been offering all-wheel drive sedans and station wagons for over 40 years, and secondly, this manufacturer is quite widely represented in the crossover segment, where AWD versions are almost mandatory. And this despite the fact that Audi does not produce SUVs (in the full sense of the term — vehicles for heavy off-road).

In this same section, we will mention BMW again, because this brand has the second largest share of all-wheel drive cars, 45.5%. Also, about a third of cars offered for sale are equipped with various AWD systems from Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Hyundai, Toyoya, as well as Mazda and KIA.

There are almost zero chances of meeting 4×4 in Daewoo (except for the rare vans in our country), brands such as Opel, Renault, the already mentioned VAZ (where only one model, the Niva, has 4×4) also did not bother producing cars with AWD, in addition to them, there are small shares of all-wheel drive designs in Skoda and Volkswagen.

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