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California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers (thedrive.com) 90

Posted by BeauHD from the only-so-many-combinations dept.
California is projected to run out of its current license plate number format by the end of 2025, prompting a transition to a new sequence that flips the current structure. The new format will consist of three numbers, three letters, and one number and will debut soon. The Drive reports: The current system for non-commercial vehicles, which consists of one number, three letters, and three numbers, was rolled out in 1980, and the DMV expects this sequence to run its course before the year is out. But, running out of license plate numbers isn't as alarming as it might sound: California officials has already announced the next sequence.

It's relatively difficult to predict precisely when California will issue its last current-style plate, but in June 2024, The Sacramento Bee wrote that the California DMV was sitting on about 18 months' worth of license plate numbers, pegging the final current-style plate for the end of the year. The system, which started with 1AAA000, will be replaced with its reverse. The new system will consist of three numbers, three letters, and one number, so the first one could be something like 000AAA1 or 001AAA1 or 100AAA1 depending on whether or how they exactly implement the existing "no leading zeroes" rule.

California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers More | Reply

California Is About To Run Out of License Plate Numbers

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  • Should copy Virginia - Personalize! (Score:5, Funny)

    by pixelpusher220 ( 529617 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @03:08AM (#65325009)

    $10/year for personalized plates. Makes driving that much more entertaining.

    And the ever hilarious VA "Kids First" plate someone registered with "EAT THE" party poopers complained and got it revoked.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ne... [dailymail.co.uk]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sique ( 173459 )
      I know of a legislation where an additional fee for vanity plates was considered illegal because the DMV is a governmental service, and the service fee should be the same for the same administrative act.

      • It's a custom request, should be absolutely legal to charge extra for it.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jonwil ( 467024 )

          It should cost extra to have the plate made, sure. But it shouldn't (as some jurisdictions I know of here in Australia do) have an additional annual fee for the personalized plate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dbialac ( 320955 )
      Why is this tech news? Why does this matter to anybody outside of the state of California?

    • And the ever hilarious VA "Kids First" plate someone registered with "EAT THE" party poopers complained and got it revoked.

      They cracked down on personalized plates about 10 years ago. I had my firearm related personalized plate revoked for no apparent reason after having it for a decade.

      Best I've heard of was another state where a mother had "PB4WEGO" on her minivan before the state revoked it.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )
        I hike a lot and have done about 12.75% of the Appalachian Trail. I have the trail name "Moof". I got a custom plate with my trail name on it and the state put "AT" at the end of it to indicate the money was in support of the Application Trail Conservancy. I was never quite comfortable with it saying, "M00FAT", but I don't know of any complaints about it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      And the ever hilarious VA "Kids First" plate someone registered with "EAT THE" party poopers complained and got it revoked.

      It's really disappointing how people with no sense of humor have to ruin things for the rest of us.

  • 7 slots. a-z + 1-9 (no 0 because O vs 0) (Score:3)

    by TheMiddleRoad ( 1153113 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @04:07AM (#65325057)

    = 64,339,296,875 possible plate combinations.

    We love cars, but we're gonna be fine.

    • Only assuming the number is completely unstructured. The current and new formats each allow 10^4 * 24^3 (assuming no o or i) which is 138,240,000. California has about 1.8m new cars a year, so this new format is good for about 76 years.

      • Re: 7 slots. a-z + 1-9 (no 0 because O vs 0) (Score:4, Interesting)

        by pjt33 ( 739471 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @05:48AM (#65325149)

        Except that the current one lasted 45 years. No leading zeroes accounts for a bit of the discrepancy, but there must be some additional factor at play.

        • Hmm, well I used the figure for car sales, but I guess commercial vehicles and motorbikes need to be added on. Then there's cars being re-registered from other states. Do cars get a new number if they're de-registered and re-registered later? And I guess some combinations are probably banned as they spell something offensive. Some numbers seem to have been skipped, and you need a bit of headroom to give you time to bring in a new system. So 45 years is about right.

          • commercial vehicles and motorbikes need to be added on

            Typically, those use numbers from a different space.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Do they not recycle numbers?

        • Do they not recycle numbers?

          That would be a good question - apparently California does not. Certainly in my state of PA, there is nothing prohibiting it.

          If I were to hazard a guess, the Cali system was designed long before it was so easy to track different license numbers, as in they were kept track of on paper.

      • Only assuming the number is completely unstructured. The current and new formats each allow 10^4 * 24^3 (assuming no o or i) which is 138,240,000. California has about 1.8m new cars a year, so this new format is good for about 76 years.

        There's only a problem because the DMV is being lazy. As of Jan 1, 2025, there were 35,983,261 cars registered in California. If the DMV wanted to use all available numbers, there would be plenty of numbers. After all, the population of California is basically flat, and generally when people get a new car, they retire the old one, so the total number of cars is basically stable.

        There's only a number shortage because the DMV is not reusing previously allocated numbers.

    • Re:7 slots. a-z + 1-9 (no 0 because O vs 0) (Score:4, Funny)

      by arglebargle_xiv ( 2212710 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @06:16AM (#65325169)
      What we need is base64-encoded QR codes on plates. That'd fix the problem.

      • What we need is base64-encoded QR codes on plates. That'd fix the problem.

        We should switch to 128-bit plate numbers so we'll be sure we never run out. They'll be kind of unwieldy, but that's easy to manage if we define a convention for abbreviating out long strings of zero bits. Say, if you have a chunk of zeros you can replace them with "::", or something like that. Oh, and we can also use this to assign many plate numbers to each car, so car owners can change their plates regularly without needing a new number assigned by the state. For example, we could reserve the last 48

        • Even after this scheme is available for decades, car owners are going to share one old style plate with everyone on their block because nobody will even give them a new style plate.

    • = 64,339,296,875 possible plate combinations.

      We love cars, but we're gonna be fine.

      Why so many number plates, and so many new cars needing them?
      Oh, yeah right: because having an actual public transport system that works in the USA is considered "communism".

      (Said as a smug European).

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by registrations_suck ( 1075251 )

        Yeah. I want to take a bus to Costco and try bringing home two carts full groceries every week, along with my wheelchair, on that bus. Sounds like a wonderful idea.

        • Free delivery generally fixes that issue.
          Even if it cost a little more, getting rid of the cost of a vehicle would pay for weekly deliveries easily.

          • Yeah....good luck with that.

            I I guess everywhere else I shop is also supposed to give me free delivery too.

            Not to mention that half the point in going shopping is to, you know, SHOP. Maybe I see something I didn't plan to buy. Kinda hard to do when just filling out a cart online.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Sique ( 173459 )
          It works for my parents, so there is that.

          Maybe one of the wrong ideas is that you have to buy in bulk and keep at least a two week supply of everything at home. No wonder U.S. fridges are so large. I also never understood why you have to buy a 12 or 20 can bundle of soda and are not allowed to take just one or two cans in the U.S..

          I have five different supermarkets in walking distance (less than a mile), and I seldom buy more than I can carry in a single bag. The only things I have more than a week's s

          • Good for you.

            What does that have to do with me taking a bus to Costco?

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by Sique ( 173459 )
              I would not take a bus to Costco (or any other bulk seller). If it really made sense, I would probably rent a bus to get there for that once-a-year occasion.

              There is a reason why the likes of Costco are virtually non-existant here. People simply don't buy in bulk.

        • I just buy a few things pretty much every day on the way home from work.

        • take a bus to Costco and try bringing home two carts full groceries every week, along with my wheelchair, on that bus.

          - I doubt that the millions of cars registered that caused an exhaustion of number plates are all A) handicapped people B) who absolutely must rely on a car for practical reasons.
          I am not arguing for a total ban on private cars, merely that a society shouldn't be built around every single human being with a pulse being absolutely forced to own and operate a private car.
          Yes, of course some use cases will always absolutely require a private vehicle. But for 99% of remaining uses, a car shouldn't be a necessit

          • My pint was the even the bestest, most robust public transportation network possible wouldn't alleviate my need, and the need for many people, to own a car.

            Maybe it would for YOU. But YOU are not everyone else.

        • Two carts of groceries for a week? I can see why you'd need the wheelchair.

          • Way to fat shame AND disability shame, dip shit.

            You have no idea what I buy or how many people I buy for, so many you can just go right ahead and fuck off.

  • I would suggest adding @, $. #, %, and &. As possible numbers.

    This would expand the space that consists of 3 numbers from 1000 to 3375; a 340% increase in the number of available sequences.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Entrope ( 68843 )

      You're on a computer technology Web site. A, B, C, D, E and F are perfectly acceptable (hexadecimal) digits to expand the numbering scheme, and won't make license plates look like cartoon profanity.

      • Why not just go the whole way and issue GUIDs?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Entrope ( 68843 )

          Encoded how? We use letters in some positions on license plate numbers because there are more than 16 letters. Still, an eight-digit base32 number is only 40 bits, versus 128 bits for a GUID. Eight-character license plates are already pushing the limit of readability with the current US plate width.

  • I have a solution! (Score:5, Funny)

    by quenda ( 644621 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @05:20AM (#65325129)

    "Numberplate Address Translation"

    Most cars rarely leave their home town. So allocate number plates to each city. Then cities issue their own internal number plates, and any cars leaving the city just borrow a city-owned plate for the trip. The city keeps a registrar of which local plate corresponds to which state plate at any given time.

    This of course is just a temporary measure, until the new national 16-letter number-plate system is launched. It will take a few years for everyone to update their forms to accommodate that.

    • Re:I have a solution! (Score:5, Informative)

      by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @06:45AM (#65325189) Journal
      That is what Japan does. They have the city name on the plate, then a letter and usually a four digit number.

      • Many states in the south love to put the owner's county of residence on their plates.

        • Nebraska, right in the middle, does as well.
          Given that they number by population, IE omaha is #1, Lincoln #2, and so on. There is a touch of an issue because 63 and 64 trade places regularly.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by r0nc0 ( 566295 )
          Despite the requests to stop doing that so folks aren't profiled from "out of the area". Stupid governments - oh wait; they're the ones looking for the "outsiders"...
      • Germany, too. The first 1-3 letters denote the place of registration. They can also be used to mark a special vehicle, like one used by state officials (BD). Then you get 1-2 letters and 1-4 numbers. These you can either choose yourself or get random ones.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Zocalo ( 252965 )
        UK too, although it's not so obvious. Two of the letters in the block of three are a - sometimes quite cryptic - reference to the location of the original registration centre back before everything got computerised, but the regional allocations have still been retained. There was a slight change when we moved from the two previous formats to the next one, but there are lists available online if anyone is curious (or just want to know where to go to showrooms in order to get a vehicle with their initials i

        • The first letter - eg L for London or S for Scotland is usually pretty obvious. The second letter, obviously not so much.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by bjoast ( 1310293 )
      Ah, the inelegance of stateful NAT, but with manual procedures. Love it!

  • Texas is getting close too (Score:3)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @06:32AM (#65325177)
    Texas is up to at least V in their current AAA-9999 series that they've been using for around 20 years. But it's no big thing. They interrupted an AA9-A999 series (if I recall correctly) before that after only a few years. Those plates had a background that went into the number area, maybe that had something to do with why they ended it, though it seems like a silly reason to suddenly start a new number series. I would not be surprised to see them resume it when the current series runs out.

  • We had something similar in the UK (Score:4, Informative)

    by MarkHughes4096 ( 6345560 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @06:52AM (#65325195)
    Our plates used to be 3 letters 3 numbers and a letter that told the year. Then we switched to year letter 3 numbers and 3 letters. We changed again later to 2 letters 2 numbers 3 letters. Our plates are mostly fixed for the life of the vehicle, When registered it gets a plate that stays with it unless you spend money to change it, There are rules about what is allowed.

    • Our (California's) plates also stay with the vehicle as long as the registration doesn't lapse, and sometimes then as well.

      • Are the plate rules nation wide ? or does each state do its own thing ?

        • The dimensions of the plate and the letters are mandated, but other than that, each state does its own thing. They introduce new color schemes including pictorial backgrounds apparently at their own whims. California has like five different custom plates with various exorbitant prices.

  • LPv6 (Score:3)

    by drillbug ( 126567 ) on Wednesday April 23, 2025 @08:55AM (#65325323)

    I really don't think they will end up rolling out the new license plates (LPv6) as soon as predicted. Most of the existing license plates will just be used behind a NAT.

  • Good enough for all the cars we will have on the future space highways.
  • The next number in the sequence is obvious, it is "A".

    It would look like "A111AAA"

    You don't even need to count in Hex for this to make sense.

  • This means no more cars can be sold in California. There's no solution, we're fucked.

  • Running out of 7-digit ASCII plate numbers is a strong sign you have too many highway vehicles. Stop allowing new vehicle registrations and start playing catchup on the century long backlog of railroad and public transportation expansion.

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