He's claimed before that he honestly believes it each year by watching the progress the past X months, but suddenly all progress stops as their method hits a plateau. So they keep changing methods.
It's probably an honest mistake the first time or two, but he's done this every year since and has no credibility anymore.
After being wrong by a year or two, he should have explained what was going in, and shut up about it, with a simple I don't know when it'll be ready but you should see forward progress each year.