Of course it's not the "patriotic" thing because it would collapse a good chunk of the economy built around Detroit if no-one bought a new car for a year.
I don't expect everyone to drive a 15 year old car like I do, but I simply do not understand why people buy brand new cars when the previous year model with only a few thousand miles will be thousands of dollars cheaper.
Buying used (or coming off lease) is generally a wise choice, but sometimes there really is a qualitative feature difference between this year's model and previous ones. If you are selecting a vehicle with mediocre milage in the first place, getting a new model could mean a 15-20% difference in mpg and that will probably pay off the price differential between the new car and a used car.
For the reason why this would actually be a good thing, I recommend (to everyone who will listen!) to read How an Economy Grows http://freedom-school.com/money/how-an-economy-grows.pdf
Its kind of long, but its a very entertaining read.
The smart money keeps the car they have until the market settles.
05 GTI turbo new? ~$18,000
05 GTI turbo when I bought it with 97k miles, all dealer maintained? $9k
Environmental reasons aside, buying used vehicles in good shape is an excellent way to judge reliability. The 5 year break in period not only provides a prospective used car buyer with a good idea of reliability, but it also allows you a great gap of time for TSB's and recalls to pop up, so you know exactly what you're getting.
I'm glad we have them, so I can buy a barely used car at a 30-50% discount.
A person less likely to sell his/her used car if it's running great.
Thus the "used car discount" adds in some % reduction due to it's selection being amongst a less healthy population of vehicles... probably not as much as 30-50%, but probably at least half that.