California is quickly running out of numbers for its license plates. The state estimates it will hit the limit of its current sequencing near the end of 2025 or early 2026. The current format for California plates was implemented 45 years ago in 1980 and began with 1AAA000. The series will end with plate 9ZZZ999. Don’t fret, though. California has a solution, and a simple one at that.
Just Flip It Backwards
California’s solution to its license plate problem is almost too simple. It’s just going to turn the existing format backwards. Today’s plates use a Numeral Alpha Alpha Alpha Numeral Numeral Numeral sequence. The next series will simply flip that and use Numeral Numeral Numeral Alpha Alpha Alpha Numeral. So, while the current plate sequence will end with 9ZZZ999, the new sequence will begin with 100AAA1.
Crunch time for the current sequence came earlier than expected. State officials had expected it to reach its end sometime in 2027, but revised that forecast last December to the end of 2025. The current economic situation brought on by President Trump’s tariff war may slow down car sales enough to extend it again to early 2026, but either way, it’s happening at least a year and a half earlier than expected.
TopSpeed’s Take
License plates are one of the most underappreciated elements of automotive culture. What kid hasn’t played the License Plate Game with their parents on a road trip? What adult hasn’t walked into a bar and faced a wall decorated entirely with license plates? In some countries, certain numbered plates sell for millions of dollars, while in this country we use vanity plates as just one more way to express ourselves through our cars.
California is the largest market in the U.S. for car sales. The state’s dealership association expects new car registrations to exceed 1.8 million this year for the first time since before the pandemic. It’s not surprising a state with nearly 30 million people would run out of license plate numbers sooner than expected, though the simplicity of its solution did give us a chuckle.
Source: The Sacramento Bee
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