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Wow -- no matter what car is available over the next 10 months, it can't possibly be better than this one!

Anyone else hate "year inflation"?

This is hardly a new thing with model years.

That was the entire point of model years. They needed way to make people want to upgrade their 'old' car. So instead of making the Ford Focus for 10 years there is the 2013 Focus and the 2014 Focus and....

Now your Focus is only a 2012 Focus. You're behind.

The fact that the 2014 focus goes on sale in 2013 only serves to accelerate this.

Not all vehicles are produced this way, some motorcycles are literally identical from model year to model year and get "blessed" with the year they happen to be sold.

They basically make up updates to cars. Just little tiny tweaks to justify the new number. Fully new generations still only come every couple of years or so.

FWIW Tesla doesn't use model years. Technically the model year is encoded in the VIN but it flips over at the start of the calendar year and isn't associated with any particular changes to the vehicle. Tesla has been adding features as soon as they're ready since launch. (e.g. parking sensors, power folding mirrors, upgraded seats etc)

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