Time into 2022, looking back at the past 2021, for the entire automotive industry, the most mentioned keyword, probably nothing more than "lack of core", but in the supply chain is so tight premise, new energy vehicles still achieved very good results. Standing at the beginning of this new year, let us review how various new energy brands have performed in the past year, and what kind of development and changes will be in the new year of 2022.
Despite the impact of the lack of chips, it is not an exaggeration to say that new energy vehicles have won a big victory in the past year. We can look at some data, in 2021, China's new energy vehicle sales reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 157.6% year-on-year, compared with 5.4% in 2020, the market penetration rate increased significantly to 13.4%.
Looking at the global new energy market, it has also achieved quite good results, especially Tesla and BYD, which are leading the way. In 2021, Tesla's cumulative global sales reached 936,200 units, while by-one, second-place BYD, also reached 593,700 vehicles in the whole year.
First of all, Tesla, after its release of 2021 full-year production and delivery data, Tesla's global sales in 202 was 936,200 vehicles, an increase of 87.4% year-on-year. The sales volume of 308,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter also set a record delivery record once again. In the 2021 Q4 financial report that Tesla just released, the gross profit of Tesla's bicycle reached a terrifying 30.6%, which is also an unprecedented good result for new energy vehicles.
Speaking of BYD, with blade batteries, DM-i super hybrid and other technologies, BYD has also made great progress in the past year. BYD's new energy models reached 593745 units in the whole year, and achieved a year-on-year increase of 231.6%.
On the domestic side, in 2021, new energy models have also achieved very good results. In this part of the new energy car, the sales volume of the top is not Tesla, nor BYD, but in the past year, the Shenche Wuling Hongguang MINI, which has been talked about by people, ranked first with 295,000 units of sales and 250.7% year-on-year growth. Of course, this is also inseparable from the positioning of this car, the small body shape, the price of the people, making it a choice for many families, so that in the past year, there have been many micro cars, and even we can see that in the sales list released by the Association, more than half of them are mini cars.
In second place, BYD Qin, the annual sales volume of 187,000, an increase of 256.3% year-on-year, which once again proves by BYD Qin's excellent product strength, as well as cost-effective. The Tesla Model 3 did not continue the previous year's results, falling from the top of the list to the third place, with domestic sales of 151,000 vehicles, but still with a year-on-year increase of 9.8%.
In terms of new energy SUV models, Tesla and BYD still maintained good results, of which the Model Y occupied the top spot with 169,800 units. It is worth mentioning that the ideal ONE has also achieved good results, ranking third with sales of 90,000 vehicles. It can be said that the ideal ONE's range extension technology has found a balance between traditional fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles, coupled with the spacious interior space, it has also become the first choice for many people.
It can be seen that throughout 2021, new energy models have maintained a very high growth, which is still limited by production capacity. At the same time, it can also be seen that after several years of development, new energy models have gradually begun to show a more subdivided trend. The rapid development of A00-class models such as the Wuling Hongguang MINI mentioned earlier is a good example. Next, with the further improvement of the acceptance of the new energy market, it is believed that in the model, it will be further subdivided.
In addition, new forces and independent brands still dominate in the Chinese market, of course, the main reason is that independent brands have laid out new energy earlier. However, as luxury brands, including BBA, continue to exert new energy, how the market pattern will change next is still full of expectations.
This is also to talk about the next development trend, under the trend of new energy tide, a significant change in the past two years is that the major traditional car companies have accelerated the process of electrification transformation, which further promotes the speed of product mass production iteration and the development of core technology. It is foreseeable that next, in the new energy market, we will not only see the accelerated development of new forces, but also see the outbreak of transmission car companies in new energy.
In fact, last year's data is also very illustrative of this, in addition to the aforementioned BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling, including the new energy sector of Great Wall, SAIC, GAC, Chery, Geely, and Changan, has achieved very good results in 2021. With the technology and experience accumulated in passenger cars for many years, it is conceivable that once these traditional car companies exert their strength, they will maintain a good growth momentum, which will be a big test for new forces.
In the past for a long time, China's auto market has been dominated by joint venture brands, but this situation, with the process of electrification and intelligence, is slowly changing, in this round of change, independent brands ushered in a new round of development opportunities, 2021 sales data is a good proof.
Next, if the epidemic situation and chip shortage can be alleviated, I believe that independent brands can be further enhanced. In this regard, Ping An Securities has made a forecast, and its data shows that China's automobile sales are expected to reach 28 million units in 2022, an increase of 6.6% year-on-year, of which new energy vehicles are expected to reach 5.1 million. In the long run, the annual sales of mainland automobiles are expected to reach 40 million vehicles, and the share of independent brands is expected to reach 60% to 70%.
It can be said that the improvement of the overall competitiveness of independent brands has become the consensus of the industry, including car companies themselves are also full of confidence, such as Geely set the sales target for 2022 at 1.65 million vehicles. BYD has also been hit by a sales target of 1.2 million vehicles in 2022. Including Hongqi, it also aims to increase by 50% on the basis of 300,600 vehicles in 2021.
At the same time, the association also made a forecast for new energy sales in 2022, and the association expects that in 2022, new energy sales will reach 6 million vehicles, with a penetration rate of 22%, of which 5.5 million new energy passenger car sales, penetration rate of 25%. It can be seen that for the increase of new energy, everyone has maintained a very optimistic attitude. However, considering the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles in 2022, we are very much looking forward to what changes will eventually occur in this new year.