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.
But once you’ve got cars on the road in both the first and second combination (or first and third, or whatever) then you can’t easily tell if it’s 111-III or III-111 or II1-11I.
in australia we had alpha and numeric divided and then a few years ago we switched to just alphanumeric everywhere… the font used is made to be machine readable - an I and a 1 look very different; it’s a non-issue
But once you’ve got cars on the road in both the first and second combination (or first and third, or whatever) then you can’t easily tell if it’s 111-III or III-111 or II1-11I.
in australia we had alpha and numeric divided and then a few years ago we switched to just alphanumeric everywhere… the font used is made to be machine readable - an I and a 1 look very different; it’s a non-issue