Front Wheel Drive vs. Rear Wheel Drive in the Light Vehicle Marketplace
A lot of ink has been spilled in recent years over the subject of a vehicle’s driven wheels - specifically, which set (front or rear) should receive the power? This issue has become particularly relevant in recent months because several important upcoming products are to be based on natively rear drive platforms (note: we use the term ‘natively’ since a number of vehicles, both FWD and RWD, are available with AWD systems). A significant number of investment dollars may be poured into the factory retoolings necessary to manufacture rear wheel drive passenger cars, so in this Observation we would like to examine the larger market trends behind these investment decisions.
Market Shifts
Driven primarily by the need for better fuel economy and more efficient utilization of interior space, Canadian consumers embraced the first generation of mainstream front drive products in the early 1980s. In 1982, 46.6 percent of Canadian passenger car sales represented natively FWD vehicles. That percentage had increased to 94.8 in 2001, and by the early years of our present decade, the rear drive layout (representing just 5.2 percent of the market in 2001) had become the exclusive domain of low volume Luxury and Sports cars. Manufacturers like Toyota have demarcated their mainstream and premium passenger car lineups along FWD/RWD lines. The volume Toyota brand remains exclusively front drive, while the majority of Lexus variants are rear drive.
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