License Plate News

[jdbx]

California's DMV gets its own license plate history wrong:

1982 – standard plate changed to a white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and "California" in red block letters. Last year any blue/yellow plates were issued.

Yellow-on-blue plates were still the standard plate for passenger cars and pickups through at least 1987.  The Golden State base plate (i.e., "white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and 'California' in red block[sic] letters") was an optional plate for an additional fee.  I believe there was a year where the Golden State base plate did become the standard plate briefly and they didn't issue yellow-on-blue ones anymore, but it was much later than 82 (during 87, I believe), there were many years of overlap where they issued yellow-on-blue and Golden State base plates, and the Golden State base plate was standard issue for less than a year before the state switched over to the ancestor to the current license plate.

The phasing out of yellow-on-blue plates was so that they could issue plates with reflective backgrounds.  The Golden State base plate had a white reflective background, and other than one addition paint color (dark yellow), didn't vary much from the post-87 standard issue plate in terms of design or cost.  The eventual evolution of the standard plate into the current unimaginative lipstick standard issue plate would have been totally unnecessary if they'd kept the Golden State base plate.

Speaking of California, has the DMV been mute on what they're going to do for their next sequence? I believe they'll exhaust the 1ABC234 at some point in 2024

Yup. My new plates are coming at the end of the year and I'm already seeing cars in the 9T range.

I could have sworn I read somewhere the next pattern was: A000AAA and up from there, which would offer millions more combinations, but I guess that's not actually confirmed? Either way, probably going to need a new system within the next year or so. (The current system started in 1980).

I'm wondering why not just keep counting? Go to 10AAANN, and so on. Then again, many things CA does don't make sense.

Because there is no need to introduce eight digits yet. You can just shuffle around the seven digits and every time you open up tens of millions of new combinations. This actually makes a lot of sense, because it's being resourceful. No need to add an eighth digit until every possible way of arranging seven digits has been exhausted.

And as mentioned, assuming license plates don't change size, then adding more and more digits forces them to get smaller and harder to read. Simply reversing the current pattern allows for an entirely new round of 175+ million numbers to be used. And then you rearrange them yet again for another 175+ million. And once you start going with more letters than numbers, you're getting into 400+ million combinations. All before you ever need to worry another adding another digit.

It's also worth mentioning that any plate sequence from 1963 onward is still valid in California. It's no small stretch to assume that most of the numbers assigned since then are no longer in use, since plates stay with a car, and the vast majority of cars are no longer on the road much past 25 years. If it was decided that 7 digit serial combinations were all exhausted, it would probably make the most sense to simply have a re-issue.  Example:  Obsolete every plate # prior to the 4LLLNNN series for cars and 6LNNNN series for trucks, and start reissuing those. That gets us back to roughly 1998.  If you have a currently-registered vehicle within that range, you get a new plate at renewal OR get to keep it, and that # gets skipped in the sequence.  If your vehicle was not currently registered, but still had plates in that range, too bad...  get new plates if/when you decide to register it.  For consistency, when reissuing the LLLNNN series, simply prepend a leading 0 for that series.

[Scott5114]

California's DMV gets its own license plate history wrong:

1982 – standard plate changed to a white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and "California" in red block letters. Last year any blue/yellow plates were issued.

Yellow-on-blue plates were still the standard plate for passenger cars and pickups through at least 1987.  The Golden State base plate (i.e., "white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and 'California' in red block[sic] letters") was an optional plate for an additional fee.  I believe there was a year where the Golden State base plate did become the standard plate briefly and they didn't issue yellow-on-blue ones anymore, but it was much later than 82 (during 87, I believe), there were many years of overlap where they issued yellow-on-blue and Golden State base plates, and the Golden State base plate was standard issue for less than a year before the state switched over to the ancestor to the current license plate.

The phasing out of yellow-on-blue plates was so that they could issue plates with reflective backgrounds.  The Golden State base plate had a white reflective background, and other than one addition paint color (dark yellow), didn't vary much from the post-87 standard issue plate in terms of design or cost.  The eventual evolution of the standard plate into the current unimaginative lipstick standard issue plate would have been totally unnecessary if they'd kept the Golden State base plate.

Speaking of California, has the DMV been mute on what they're going to do for their next sequence? I believe they'll exhaust the 1ABC234 at some point in 2024

Yup. My new plates are coming at the end of the year and I'm already seeing cars in the 9T range.

I could have sworn I read somewhere the next pattern was: A000AAA and up from there, which would offer millions more combinations, but I guess that's not actually confirmed? Either way, probably going to need a new system within the next year or so. (The current system started in 1980).

I'm wondering why not just keep counting? Go to 10AAANN, and so on. Then again, many things CA does don't make sense.

Because there is no need to introduce eight digits yet.

$ perl -e 'print length("10AAANN") . "\n";'
7

[6a]

California's DMV gets its own license plate history wrong:

1982 – standard plate changed to a white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and "California" in red block letters. Last year any blue/yellow plates were issued.

Yellow-on-blue plates were still the standard plate for passenger cars and pickups through at least 1987.  The Golden State base plate (i.e., "white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and 'California' in red block[sic] letters") was an optional plate for an additional fee.  I believe there was a year where the Golden State base plate did become the standard plate briefly and they didn't issue yellow-on-blue ones anymore, but it was much later than 82 (during 87, I believe), there were many years of overlap where they issued yellow-on-blue and Golden State base plates, and the Golden State base plate was standard issue for less than a year before the state switched over to the ancestor to the current license plate.

The phasing out of yellow-on-blue plates was so that they could issue plates with reflective backgrounds.  The Golden State base plate had a white reflective background, and other than one addition paint color (dark yellow), didn't vary much from the post-87 standard issue plate in terms of design or cost.  The eventual evolution of the standard plate into the current unimaginative lipstick standard issue plate would have been totally unnecessary if they'd kept the Golden State base plate.

Speaking of California, has the DMV been mute on what they're going to do for their next sequence? I believe they'll exhaust the 1ABC234 at some point in 2024

Yup. My new plates are coming at the end of the year and I'm already seeing cars in the 9T range.

I could have sworn I read somewhere the next pattern was: A000AAA and up from there, which would offer millions more combinations, but I guess that's not actually confirmed? Either way, probably going to need a new system within the next year or so. (The current system started in 1980).

I'm wondering why not just keep counting? Go to 10AAANN, and so on. Then again, many things CA does don't make sense.

Because there is no need to introduce eight digits yet. You can just shuffle around the seven digits and every time you open up tens of millions of new combinations. This actually makes a lot of sense, because it's being resourceful. No need to add an eighth digit until every possible way of arranging seven digits has been exhausted.

And as mentioned, assuming license plates don't change size, then adding more and more digits forces them to get smaller and harder to read. Simply reversing the current pattern allows for an entirely new round of 175+ million numbers to be used. And then you rearrange them yet again for another 175+ million. And once you start going with more letters than numbers, you're getting into 400+ million combinations. All before you ever need to worry another adding another digit.

I didn't add an eighth digit.

[formulanone]

California's DMV gets its own license plate history wrong:

1982 – standard plate changed to a white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and "California" in red block letters. Last year any blue/yellow plates were issued.

Yellow-on-blue plates were still the standard plate for passenger cars and pickups through at least 1987.  The Golden State base plate (i.e., "white background with blue characters with a sun graphic and 'California' in red block[sic] letters") was an optional plate for an additional fee.  I believe there was a year where the Golden State base plate did become the standard plate briefly and they didn't issue yellow-on-blue ones anymore, but it was much later than 82 (during 87, I believe), there were many years of overlap where they issued yellow-on-blue and Golden State base plates, and the Golden State base plate was standard issue for less than a year before the state switched over to the ancestor to the current license plate.

The phasing out of yellow-on-blue plates was so that they could issue plates with reflective backgrounds.  The Golden State base plate had a white reflective background, and other than one addition paint color (dark yellow), didn't vary much from the post-87 standard issue plate in terms of design or cost.  The eventual evolution of the standard plate into the current unimaginative lipstick standard issue plate would have been totally unnecessary if they'd kept the Golden State base plate.

Speaking of California, has the DMV been mute on what they're going to do for their next sequence? I believe they'll exhaust the 1ABC234 at some point in 2024

Yup. My new plates are coming at the end of the year and I'm already seeing cars in the 9T range.

I could have sworn I read somewhere the next pattern was: A000AAA and up from there, which would offer millions more combinations, but I guess that's not actually confirmed? Either way, probably going to need a new system within the next year or so. (The current system started in 1980).

I'm wondering why not just keep counting? Go to 10AAANN, and so on. Then again, many things CA does don't make sense.

Because there is no need to introduce eight digits yet. You can just shuffle around the seven digits and every time you open up tens of millions of new combinations. This actually makes a lot of sense, because it's being resourceful. No need to add an eighth digit until every possible way of arranging seven digits has been exhausted.

And as mentioned, assuming license plates don't change size, then adding more and more digits forces them to get smaller and harder to read. Simply reversing the current pattern allows for an entirely new round of 175+ million numbers to be used. And then you rearrange them yet again for another 175+ million. And once you start going with more letters than numbers, you're getting into 400+ million combinations. All before you ever need to worry another adding another digit.

I didn't add an eighth digit.

^ Bolded for emphasis. 6a went with two digits on the end instead of three.

[SD Mapman]

More on the brewing controversy in Kansas re license plate designs:

https://kansasreflector.com/2023/12/11/five-new-kansas-license-plate-designs-offered-after-first-try-met-with-widespread-disgust/

Interesting to see Kansas move to seven digits. Well, I actually like the first one shown, which is apparantly the "controversial" one. (Although based on the older article, looks like all they did was change the top from black to dark blue). Likewise, the same design but with the white background looks fine. Also interesting they're using a reversal pattern of what California uses now, which is supposedly what will be in use in California likely within the next year or so.

And a winner has been chosen!
https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansans-choose-ad-astra-license-plate-in-online-vote/

[6a]

"Kansans will notice that license plates across the country are moving to simpler designs — that's because of law enforcement and license plate reader requirements. Our No. 1 priority with these license plates is safety."

Someone please tell Ohio.

[Road Hog]

More on the brewing controversy in Kansas re license plate designs:

https://kansasreflector.com/2023/12/11/five-new-kansas-license-plate-designs-offered-after-first-try-met-with-widespread-disgust/

Interesting to see Kansas move to seven digits. Well, I actually like the first one shown, which is apparantly the "controversial" one. (Although based on the older article, looks like all they did was change the top from black to dark blue). Likewise, the same design but with the white background looks fine. Also interesting they're using a reversal pattern of what California uses now, which is supposedly what will be in use in California likely within the next year or so.

And a winner has been chosen!
https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansans-choose-ad-astra-license-plate-in-online-vote/

The plate's border is the state's outline. Very subtle.

[OCGuy81]

More on the brewing controversy in Kansas re license plate designs:

https://kansasreflector.com/2023/12/11/five-new-kansas-license-plate-designs-offered-after-first-try-met-with-widespread-disgust/

Interesting to see Kansas move to seven digits. Well, I actually like the first one shown, which is apparantly the "controversial" one. (Although based on the older article, looks like all they did was change the top from black to dark blue). Likewise, the same design but with the white background looks fine. Also interesting they're using a reversal pattern of what California uses now, which is supposedly what will be in use in California likely within the next year or so.

And a winner has been chosen!
https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansans-choose-ad-astra-license-plate-in-online-vote/

The plate's border is the state's outline. Very subtle.

Which was last used by Kansas in 1980-ish, IIRC.

[SP Cook]

And Kentucky switches from the "plate stays with the car" minority to the "plate stays with the seller" majority. 

https://www.wsaz.com/2024/01/04/changes-coming-vehicle-licensing-kentucky/

[burgess87]

Maine has unveiled their new standard plate, starting in May of 2025:

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/02/26/new-maine-license-plate-designs-unveiled/

The plate features a white base & blue border, with the state name and slogan in green capital letters; a blue star in the top left, and a pine tree on the left side in place of the chickadee.

The registration stickers move to the right side of the plate; month in the top right, year in the bottom right.

[StogieGuy7]

Maine has unveiled their new standard plate, starting in May of 2025:

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/02/26/new-maine-license-plate-designs-unveiled/

The plate features a white base & blue border, with the state name and slogan in green capital letters; a blue star in the top left, and a pine tree on the left side in place of the chickadee.

The registration stickers move to the right side of the plate; month in the top right, year in the bottom right.

It's just okay, I don't hate it but find it a bit dull. Perhaps it's the bargain basement font. Also, I'm not sure why ME loves to have an image that offsets the numbers to the right but they've been doing it for a while now. Still it's a lot better than most of those phony looking flat plates with the crap 3M font.

[jdbx]

Maine has unveiled their new standard plate, starting in May of 2025:

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/02/26/new-maine-license-plate-designs-unveiled/

The plate features a white base & blue border, with the state name and slogan in green capital letters; a blue star in the top left, and a pine tree on the left side in place of the chickadee.

The registration stickers move to the right side of the plate; month in the top right, year in the bottom right.

It's just okay, I don't hate it but find it a bit dull. Perhaps it's the bargain basement font. Also, I'm not sure why ME loves to have an image that offsets the numbers to the right but they've been doing it for a while now. Still it's a lot better than most of those phony looking flat plates with the crap 3M font.

At this point, I consider any embossed plate to be a win.

[Ted$8roadFan]

I actually like the simplicity of the new Maine plate's design. And after 26 years of Maine weather, it is probably past time to replace older plates. Another article mentioned that Mainers who want to keep their current number (apparently includes vanity and low numbers) will eventually need to reserve them. It will be interesting to see what happens with low number and vanity plates

https://www.wmtw.com/article/state-unveils-pine-tree-design-maine-standard-license-plates/46973031

[Flint1979]

I was in Ohio yesterday and someone told me that our Winter Water Wonderland plates look better than Ohio's plates.

[SP Cook]

I was in Ohio yesterday and someone told me that our Winter Water Wonderland plates look better than Ohio's plates.

Ohio and North Carolina, both mega successful and significant states, need to end this "airplane" feud.  First, no one cares.  Second, these are important states with lots of things to brag about.  If a state like mine had a claim, I get it, this is a backwater and pretty much failed state, so pushing the one big thing make sense, but OH and NC are not that.  Plenty happened in each place.

As to the OH plate, it is just too busy.  As was the one before it, where they couldn't pick a slogan and thus used them all.  I get that a simple "Buckeye State" might get some minority opposition (Cincinnati and Ohio U grads, in my experience, hate OSU and being called "Buckeyes", which is WV slang for Ohio drivers), but "the heart of it all" was a fine slogan.  Ohio is kinda heart shaped, and is the center of the populated part of the country. 

[frankenroad]

At this point, I consider any embossed plate to be a win.

THIS ^^^^^^^^^^^
         | | | | | | | | | | |

[GaryV]

Maine has unveiled their new standard plate, starting in May of 2025:

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/02/26/new-maine-license-plate-designs-unveiled/

The plate features a white base & blue border, with the state name and slogan in green capital letters; a blue star in the top left, and a pine tree on the left side in place of the chickadee.

The registration stickers move to the right side of the plate; month in the top right, year in the bottom right.

Why are there 2 designs? Do you pay extra for the tree?

[Flint1979]

I was in Ohio yesterday and someone told me that our Winter Water Wonderland plates look better than Ohio's plates.

Ohio and North Carolina, both mega successful and significant states, need to end this "airplane" feud.  First, no one cares.  Second, these are important states with lots of things to brag about.  If a state like mine had a claim, I get it, this is a backwater and pretty much failed state, so pushing the one big thing make sense, but OH and NC are not that.  Plenty happened in each place.

As to the OH plate, it is just too busy.  As was the one before it, where they couldn't pick a slogan and thus used them all.  I get that a simple "Buckeye State" might get some minority opposition (Cincinnati and Ohio U grads, in my experience, hate OSU and being called "Buckeyes", which is WV slang for Ohio drivers), but "the heart of it all" was a fine slogan.  Ohio is kinda heart shaped, and is the center of the populated part of the country.

Right. I see Ohio plates quite often where I'm at so I know what their plates look like. I looked at one after getting that comment and thought it looks like jibberish to me really I can't really make anything out of it. I hate Michigan's Pure Michigan plates and was thrilled when I got a chance to replace that ugly plate.

[Flint1979]

Speaking of Michigan's license plates, would the people that get the Water Winter Wonderland plates put the registration sticker in the proper place on the plate? It's really not that hard. It goes in the lower right corner, not the upper right, not the lower left, not the upper left and not in the middle of the plate. I also see people that will put a new sticker in a different corner of the plate like they'll have a 24 sticker in one corner, a 23 sticker in another corner, a 22 sticker in another corner and a 21 sticker in yet another corner. Your suppose to cover your old stickers with the new ones. Yeah the god awful Pure Michigan plates have it in the upper right corner but the white line in the lower right corner of the Water Winter Wonderland plates is where the sticker is suppose to go on those plates. I just think it's stupid.

[JayhawkCO]

Maine has unveiled their new standard plate, starting in May of 2025:

https://www.wabi.tv/2024/02/26/new-maine-license-plate-designs-unveiled/

The plate features a white base & blue border, with the state name and slogan in green capital letters; a blue star in the top left, and a pine tree on the left side in place of the chickadee.

The registration stickers move to the right side of the plate; month in the top right, year in the bottom right.

Why are there 2 designs? Do you pay extra for the tree?

I'm guessing the tree-less is for vanity plates. In Colorado, the middle image that is common on most of the specialty plates goes away if you do a vanity.

[Rothman]

Speaking of Michigan's license plates, would the people that get the Water Winter Wonderland plates put the registration sticker in the proper place on the plate? It's really not that hard. It goes in the lower right corner, not the upper right, not the lower left, not the upper left and not in the middle of the plate. I also see people that will put a new sticker in a different corner of the plate like they'll have a 24 sticker in one corner, a 23 sticker in another corner, a 22 sticker in another corner and a 21 sticker in yet another corner. Your suppose to cover your old stickers with the new ones. Yeah the god awful Pure Michigan plates have it in the upper right corner but the white line in the lower right corner of the Water Winter Wonderland plates is where the sticker is suppose to go on those plates. I just think it's stupid.

No.  No, they won't.

Life will go on.

[kphoger]

Why are there 2 designs? Do you pay extra for the tree?

According to the Portland Press Herald, drivers will get to choose which one they want—with or without the tree.  But trucks will only use the tree one.

[doglover44]

What new states are getting plates this year ?

[Ted$8roadFan]

I think Mississippi is; not sure who else.

[kphoger]

What new states are getting plates this year ?

I think Mississippi is; not sure who else.

Mississippi is not a new state.