{"id":8294,"date":"2026-04-28T19:09:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:09:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8294\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T19:09:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T19:09:14","slug":"over-60-of-bmws-sold-in-germany-now-have-all-wheel-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/8294\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 60% of BMWs Sold in Germany Now Have All-Wheel Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 60% of new BMWs registered in Germany in the first quarter of 2026 came with xDrive. That\u2019s the first time the brand has cleared that line, and at this rate the two-thirds mark isn\u2019t far off. A year ago the figure was 54.9%. The trend had looked like it was leveling out around 50% \u2014 turns out it wasn\u2019t. For context: Audi sold nearly 10,000 fewer Quattro units in the same period and sits at 49.5% AWD penetration. Mercedes is lower, at 44.7% for 4Matic.<\/p>\n

The obvious explanation for BMW\u2019s success is the X-series SUVs, where rear-wheel drive isn\u2019t even available in Germany anymore. The xDrive rate there is around 80%. But passenger cars now tell a similar story: 41.9% of BMW\u2019s sedan and coupe registrations go out the door with all-wheel drive. The shift isn\u2019t just SUV buyers hedging against winter roads.<\/p>\n

In 2009, xDrive was on fewer than 1 in 6 BMWs sold in Germany (14.9%). By Q1 2026 it\u2019s 60.2% \u2014 a fourfold increase over 17 years. The only real pause came around 2014\u20132016, where growth stalled between 34\u201336%. That coincides with a period when fuel prices were falling and there was less pressure on buyers to justify the AWD premium. The 2021\u20132022 jump to 53% was the first time xDrive crossed the majority threshold \u2014 and it held there, suggesting it wasn\u2019t a fluke of one particular model year or launch cycle.<\/p>\n

\"BMW<\/a><\/p>\n

At the model level, the 8 Series numbers are telling the full story. One customer in Q1 bought a rear-drive 840i. Every other 8 or M8 buyer chose xDrive. In the 5 Series, 61% went all-wheel drive. In the 3 Series, nearly half did. Some of this reflects genuine customer preference. Some of it reflects the fact that BMW has removed rear-drive options from many of its higher-output variants, so buyers who want the performance spec have no real decision to make. The 7 Series facelift (G70 LCI) follows the pattern \u2014 the rear-drive i7 eDrive50 is discontinued, its slot taken by the i7 50 xDrive.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s quietly changed is how BMW talks about it. The Neue Klasse iX3<\/a> and i3 don\u2019t carry xDrive badges anywhere on the body. The facelifted 7 Series drops the badge too in some markets (the U.S. retains it).<\/p>\n

The headliner for later this year is the BMW M2 M xDrive<\/a> \u2014 the first M compact sport car with four driven wheels. The M xDrive system runs rear-biased and includes a full rear-wheel-drive mode, which matters if you\u2019re the kind of M2 buyer who\u2019d otherwise be skeptical. Whether that\u2019s enough to win them over is another question.<\/p>\n

[Source: BimmerToday<\/a>]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 60% of new BMWs registered in Germany in the first quarter of 2026 came with xDrive.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8151,4296,5,8152],"class_list":["post-8294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-germany","tag-all-wheel-drive","tag-bmw-sales","tag-germany","tag-xdrive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/germany\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}