The growing number of electronic components used in automobiles has given rise to problems concerning the increasing number, size and weight of the wiring harnesses. As an approach to resolve these problems, multiplexed wiring systems using automotive communication protocol such as Controller Area Network(CAN), Advanced PALMNET and J1850 have been developed by many automobile companies. In order to compare these protocols quantitatively, this paper presents the performance evaluation of CAN and Advanced PALMNET via discrete event simulation. Through numerous simulation experiments, several important quantitative performance factors such as the probability of a transmission failure, average system delay(data latency), and throughput have been evaluated.