Beijing (ZXZC)- Tesla sold 70,847 China-made vehicles in December, a record high in 2021, according to the China Passenger Car Association (CPCA). That included 245 vehicles that were exported to other countries last month, indicating the American automaker’s locally-made vehicle sales in China totaled 70,602 units.

(sales of the first two months refer to those sold in China market)

According to a press release from Tesla, its Gigafactory Shanghai delivered 484,130 vehicles in 2021, surging 235% from a year ago and accounting for more than half of Tesla’s global annual deliveries (936,000).

Among those Tesla vehicles produced in Shanghai last year, over 160,000 were exported to more than 10 overseas markets in Asia and Europe. The export volume of the Shanghai-made Model 3 surpassed 130,000 in 2021. Besides, the Model Y ended its first year on China’s market with sales exceeding 200,000 units to 200,131 vehicles.

According to the association, the wholesale volume of new energy passenger vehicles in China in December soared 138.9% year on year to 505,000 units while the wholesale volume for the whole year of 2021 grew 181% from a year ago to 3.312 million vehicles.

In December last year, the wholesale volume of battery electric vehicles totaled 423,000, representing a jump of 138% versus a year ago while the volume of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles increased 144% year on year to 82,000 units.

More and more automakers in China sold over 10,000 new energy passenger vehicles in one month. In December 2021, 14 automakers’ monthly new energy vehicle wholesales surpassed 10,000 units, namely BYD (93,338 units), Tesla China (70,847 units), SAIC GM Wuling (60,372 units), Great Wall Motor (20,926 units), Chery (20,501 units), Geely Auto (16,831 units), XPeng (16,000 units), SAIC Motor PV (14,868 units), GAC AION (14,500 units), Li Auto (14,087 units), FAW VW (11,213 units), NIO (10,489 units), Changan (10,404 units) and Hozon (10,127 units).

The association also raised its expectation for new energy passenger vehicle sales in 2022 from 4.8 million units to 5.5 million units with a penetration rate of 25%. The total sales of new energy vehicle sales are expected to surpass 6 million units this year.