When Do New Cars Come Out?

While many new and updated vehicles arrive in early fall — an automotive practice that dates back more than a century — the timing of introductions has changed. Today, new vehicles can go on sale at car dealerships up to a year before their designated model year.

Related: What’s the Best Time of Year to Buy a Car?

How Did Model-Year Changes Become a Thing?

• Farmers with cash after harvest and marketing are credited as two reasons why new-model-year changes came to be.
• Early fall later became the universal start for the new model year in the industry, even for mid-cycle refreshes.

Some historians credit the practice to farmers, who would be flush with cash after harvest and able to afford a new car, and that hasn’t changed. The allure of the new car, or showing off the latest and greatest status symbol on wheels, still suggests the bounty of one’s financial harvest.

Other sources align the fall introduction with another automotive bedfellow: marketing. GM’s president Alfred Sloan is often credited with ushering in the era of the annual model change back in the 1920s by taking a page from the fashion industry and introducing new colors and other cosmetic changes. These tweaks not only concealed older technology, they appealed to the automotive fashionistas clamoring for what was hot in a booming post-war economy.

After World War II, the automotive industry seemed to agree on early October as the start of the new year for car models, which eventually coincided with the launch of television’s lucrative fall-season lineup. The practice of launching the next model year in early fall continued for decades, even as the significant cosmetic changes eventually became mid-cycle refreshes a few years into a model’s generation.

Why Are New Cars Launched All Year Now?

• Though the new model year can launch at any time in the calendar, a law states that it can begin as early as Jan. 1 of the preceding year.
• Marketing and political factors can influence when a new model is launched.
• Automakers can break the news cycle and rotate updates through their lineups by revealing model-year changes throughout the year.

More recent regulations in 1990 applied language that automakers can sell a model year as early as Jan. 1 of the preceding year for testing and validation purposes. However, the arrival of the next model year in the current calendar comes from myriad factors, from software updates to import taxes.

The biggest reason automakers choose when to launch a car for the subsequent model year largely comes down to the complexity of the global automotive industry, including political factors. Considering the time it takes to develop a new car or redesign an existing model (roughly from three to five years), automakers aim to control their narrative. For instance, media consumption has changed as much, if not more, than the automotive industry. With print, radio and TV ads now competing with digital, influencer and social media opportunities, an automaker can get coverage anytime and anywhere, and launches can be tied to big events.

As regional and international car shows reorient to being consumer-driven shows rather than the big newsmakers in the automotive calendar, many automakers will debut vehicles on their own schedule to capture all the attention without all the clutter of several products launching at once. This allows automakers to stage the cadence of the rollouts throughout their lineup, stay in the news cycle and keep their marketing fresh. For example, the redesigned 2026 Honda Passport went on sale in the first quarter of 2025, making it one of the first new models to arrive for the 2026 model year. An off-road-adjacent version of the 2026 Honda CR-V, the TrailSport, followed, and a month later, the Honda Prelude was resurrected as a sporty hybrid coupe. At the same time, Honda is selling carryover versions of its model-year 2026 Odyssey and Civic.

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Tech Innovations Also Muddle the Model Year

• Preorders and direct-to-consumer sales, as well as software updates, have changed the model-year cadence, especially for startup automakers.

Preorders and other sales tactics, such as direct-to-consumer sales that bypass the dealer franchise model, have also muddled the model-year cadence. Automakers, especially startups like Tesla and Rivian, can use preorders to assess customer interest and adjust production targets and allotments. For example, Scout returned as a subsidiary of Volkswagen in 2024, but its electric truck and SUV won’t be ready until 2027 as the sub-brand figures out its footing in a market with cooling electric-vehicle demand. The company is planning to bypass the franchised dealer model for direct sales.

Other innovations patched through software updates also change what is meant by a model year. Tesla has kept its lineup of four vehicles (Cybertruck excluded) relatively new with software updates that can even unleash more range or horsepower. For instance, the Model 3 launched for the 2017 model year, and even though it had a late-cycle refresh for 2024, it’s essentially the same car, with the same platform and drive units. As with many EVs, the model year is less telling than which software version it’s running.

The New Model Year Is Not the Same as the Old New Model Year

All of these changes have diminished one of the biggest distinctions in the automotive order. Yet, new model years still matter, as they tend to result in higher resale and residual values when trading in or ending a lease. Even though most models today are carryovers with no changes, they still command a price increase, however nominal or notable.

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