The seven-character pattern California has used for 45 years will finally run out of combinations in 2025, two years earlier than expected. But America's largest car market has a plan.
Just changing to a new numbering system when they run out.
UK includes the year in it, so it shouldn’t ever really run out. Ok I guess eventually it will loop but I expect most will be available for reuse by then.
One issue could be if more cars are registered than the digits would make available for that year but you would probably just design it in a way there is significantly more space than you are ever realistically going to need.
We actually did loop in Denmark a decade or so ago. It was quite easy to guess the production year of the car by just looking at the first two letters. It was a bit trippy seeing new cars with "AA 11 111” all of a sudden when we ran out of ZZ’s.
That would be pretty nice. Our plates are expensive over here (US) so we just put a new tiny year sticker on each time and keep the plates for a long time.
I think you might be mis-understanding slightly? In the UK the date is on the plate as part of the number e.g. AB25 6CD would be on a car registered in 2025. We don’t have anything on cars like a registration (tax disk went long ago) number plates are big and plastic here for some reason, someone smart could probably explain why it’s good or bad.
UK includes the year in it, so it shouldn’t ever really run out. Ok I guess eventually it will loop but I expect most will be available for reuse by then.
One issue could be if more cars are registered than the digits would make available for that year but you would probably just design it in a way there is significantly more space than you are ever realistically going to need.
We actually did loop in Denmark a decade or so ago. It was quite easy to guess the production year of the car by just looking at the first two letters. It was a bit trippy seeing new cars with "AA 11 111” all of a sudden when we ran out of ZZ’s.
That would be pretty nice. Our plates are expensive over here (US) so we just put a new tiny year sticker on each time and keep the plates for a long time.
I think you might be mis-understanding slightly? In the UK the date is on the plate as part of the number e.g. AB25 6CD would be on a car registered in 2025. We don’t have anything on cars like a registration (tax disk went long ago) number plates are big and plastic here for some reason, someone smart could probably explain why it’s good or bad.