Recently, not only common types of hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) such as series or parallel but many other types of HEVs including 4WD hybrid electric vehicle have been developed and released. In this study, analysis of fuel economy and driving performance for 2WD and 4WD HEV are conducted using backward simulation based on dynamic programming. To analyze the characteristics of 4WD HEV, tire slip model based on vehicle dynamics was applied to the backward simulation program. As a result, 2WD HEV shows better fuel economy than 4WD HEV because of relatively simple configuration. However, in a severe road condition, 4WD HEV shows better driving performance that 2WD HEV had about 6% of impossible time to follow the driving cycle though the 4WD HEV had no impossible time.