Yet all countries adhere to model years. Name a country that doesn't register the model year at purchase. The broader point is most changes do not coincide with model years, and these are generally the bigger changes, including your example Highland everywhere else. This has been Tesla's stated strategy that they have used to great effect. Model S update history is a classic example, and since the Palladium update, there's been very little line up with your model year point.Most other countries don’t have the same model year setup like in the US (the VIN digit for model year isn’t even required in those cases). Point is in recent years there has been a tendency to have some changes coincide with the model year changeover.