California is Trying Out Digital License Plates, For Some Reason

[Auditore]

I love how America comes up with these before any country other than Japan even tries

Gotta say this looks pretty cool and straight out a ricer's dream

 

[SlipZtrEm]

They're not really equivalent though. Our police and security forces hinge on being able to actively monitor all people in public places at all times - something the US finds a little unpalatable, even if the state is rather firmly behind the idea, but thinks public places alone is too unambitious.

This is more about services that are offered to the public and I remember even a few short years ago having to visit the post office to get a tax disc for my car, and having to fax - yes FAX - my insurance company proof of no claims. And we won't even mention the mind-boggling juggling act of dumbness that was buying a new car then being unable to tax it without a V5, unable to insure it without tax, and unable to MOT it without insurance. Now most of that is electronic.

When we moved into our current condo, the ISP required me to fax documents to its head office. After dealing with three separate people on the phone, I found someone who was fine with me simply emailing a picture.

Later on, when the company inevitably overcharged us for something, I had to call again and deal with them. The nice person on the other end had to transfer me to another building, because — I kid you not — the building he was in didn't have internet access. It was only the biggest ISP in Canada.

 

[samdu]

Oh great, a new thing that can stop working in the car... how many of us got instrument displays that stoped being visible in our dashboards?

Plus the price plus, as said, more battery consumption... Plain great, all we needed.


Well, I hope you can't change the number on them... or else it would be useless...
So it wouldn't be resellable.

Ha!

In South Carolina, this would save, at most, a trip to the mailbox and out to the car to slap the new sticker on the plate. And $700? AND a monthly fee? Nope. Finally, and most importantly, if anyone thinks these won't be hacked (probably almost immediately), they haven't been paying attention. I see literally no upside to these things. Not just no, but hell no.

 

[INEEDNAWZZZ]

I'm waiting for Bethesda to announce a port of Skyrim on to one of these.

 

[Robin]

So many thoughts jump to mind:
- reflective at night?
- hackable?
- power off while committing a crime?
- how does that display hold up to mud and snow?
- equipped to work with red light cameras?
- how long will it take before someone puts porn on it?
- why even bother with a plate?

- The background of an E-Ink display can be anything, instead of a white panel it will just be a reflective one.
- The licence number will likely to be hardware encrypted to the specific plate and cannot be changed by anyone.
- Even if the power is pulled E-Ink displays stay on.
- It will probably hold up like any other outdoor floodlight, display, etc IP65 rated.
- Dunno
- Porn would go to the moon if it could.
- Helps you find your car in a carpark

 

[Danoff]

Helps you find your car in a carpark

With the digital tracker (instead of a normal plate) you should be able to ask your phone where your car is in the carpark. Also, at the scene of a crime, if people are wondering what car it was, presumably your phone had a near field record of all cars that were in the vicinity on your phone and it can even show you a picture so you can select the right one. Really it makes plates pointless.

 

[NotThePrez]

I also wonder what happens if the plates burn out or malfunction. Is that considered driving without registration? Or, in the event that someone has purposely disabled them, what's to stop them from telling the cop "Oh, sorry Officer. It must have gone out while I was driving."

Also, when somebody eventually figures out how to break into one electronically, what's to stop them from doing something like, changing the plate number after committing a crime, or change another cars (unlikely as that may be) to get authorities to follow some other car, or worse, get them on a innocent person because of a plate change. It sounds a little far-fetched admittedly, but one big thing I see is more ways for crimes to be committed.

Edit: Tree'd/Cheers @Robin

 

[Robin]

With the digital tracker (instead of a normal plate) you should be able to ask your phone where your car is in the carpark. Also, at the scene of a crime, if people are wondering what car it was, presumably your phone had a near field record of all cars that were in the vicinity on your phone and it can even show you a picture so you can select the right one. Really it makes plates pointless.

Hardly any cars (at least here in the UK) under a high price point have factory fit trackers or mobile phone locator functionality. Often the Police will ask people if they remember any digits of the vehicles plate, it's often the most important piece of information in crime solving.

Just the other day an identical car was parked next to mine. Took half a second for me to figure out which one was mine instead of faffing with my keys or anything else.

 

[ykiki]

After reading the story, I have to keep reminding myself that today is June 1st and not April 1st.

 

[TeamCZRRacing]

This has got to be one of the dumbest ideas ever. Reasons I can think of:

1) If you get into an accident, you'd wind up shattering your license plate (never thought I'd say that).
2) How much power does it draw?
3) If it turns off when the car turns off, that would seriously hinder law enforcement.
4) You know people are gonna find a way to hack it to display custom tags illegally, or to display things the driver doesn't want displayed.
5) The cost. NOW I HAVE TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY ****ING LICENSE PLATE?! WHAT?!
6) If the map thing becomes real, the last thing I need is some idiot staring at a map on the back of my car when he or she should be paying attention to the road.
7) Same thing goes with ads. But ads are doubly stupid in that it's the equivalent of someone using your car for advertising without your permission. If someone ran up and slapped a random sticker on the back of my car to advertise their product, I'd be fuming. This is essentially that.
8) And another thing that bothers me: normal license plates work just fine without any of the massive, significant drawbacks. Why are Sacramento and Dubai trying to fix something that straight-up is not broken?!

 

[UnkaD]

Sounds like another way towards California eventually making cars impossible to own and forcing everyone who isn't Hollywood to take the bus or bicycle.

 

[Silent Drifter]

Yeah, screw that. One more reason why I never want to live in California. I can already renew my plates online for $76, which renews instantly after you pay it. You just have to wait for the sticker to show up, to put on the plate though. I haven't step foot into a DMV in like 2 years. Only went to a DMV back then to renew my drivers license.

 

[Corsa]

Great article, but my contribution is this...

We already have online renewal.

There are no speed cameras where I live.

My Charger already has a "black box" that records my driving habits and in the event of an accident, police can access it.

In fact, almost all cars produced in the last 5 years have them as standard equipment.

My car already has GPS tracking.

This is just California being California, and the idea any government entity assures they won't use it for tracking purposes is laughable.
They track everything attached to a cell phone tower or IP address already.

 

[ImaRobot]

Yeah, screw that. One more reason why I never want to live in California. I can already renew my plates online for $76, which renews instantly after you pay it. You just have to wait for the sticker to show up, to put on the plate though. I haven't step foot into a DMV in like 2 years. Only went to a DMV back then to renew my drivers license.

I do agree that California is a bit wacky at times, but I highly doubt this is something that's going to be forced . We can also renew our plates online from what I can tell, so I'm not sure what difference this is really going to be honest. Seems a bit meaningless.

Also I'm surprised you had to go to the DMV for the license, I just throw 20 bucks at them and wait for it to come by mail. Funny thing is that I haven't had a car since even my last renewal lol.

 

[Robin]

I can already renew my plates online for $76, which renews instantly after you pay it.

$76! Over here the average people pay is about £140 ($187) for a hatchback and we don't even get a sticker

 

[Silent Drifter]

I do agree that California is a bit wacky at times, but I highly doubt this is something that's going to be forced . We can also renew our plates online from what I can tell, so I'm not sure what difference this is really going to be honest. Seems a bit meaningless.

Also I'm surprised you had to go to the DMV for the license, I just throw 20 bucks at them and wait for it to come by mail. Funny thing is that I haven't had a car since even my last renewal lol.

Yeah, when I renewed it, at least in Wisconsin, as far as I know. I needed to get a new photo taken. I also wanted to get the Real ID thing or whatever it's called, for when you fly. Since I guess that will become a thing in 2020.

$76! Over here the average people pay is about £140 ($187) for a hatchback and we don't even get a sticker

Yeah, I try not to complain too much, as I'm sort of aware, of the prices you guys have to pay over there. But yeah, it's not terrible. When I had a 4 door sedan, it was like $50. But I think it was raised to $75. The county next door to where I live, implemented a wheel tax, which I think it was another $50 on top of your registration That went towards the road repair fund. If that's where it really ended up, who knows. It's the government,

 

[KingFrog]

Good, im going to hack it. You see, iv already planned it all out, when they eventually outlaw ICE cars, I'm going to be a road pirate. They will eventually outlaw driving too. So all your cars will be mindless drones that refuel. park where the government says you can. Ahh, I'm going to have fun smuggling contraband or you know, going up and down hills for fun.

Or you know, this can be added into my Sci-fi book about road pirates .

 

[TVR27]

Well if the sun is very bright and you speed maybe the speed cameras will not see the digital plates.

 

[dbarrade]

It's funny how all of the "What if..."s can be done today... people already change their plate, take them off, etc etc... we don't need them to be digital before someone does that.

On the flip side, I wonder if you could have them alternate between real and blank or other plates really fast to confuse camera's whilst still looking OK to the human eye, like when there is a video of a cars headlights in slow motion:

 

[TenEightyOne]

It's funny how all of the "What if..."s can be done today... people already change their plate, take them off, etc etc... we don't need them to be digital before someone does that.

The only vehicles I've seen that can change their plate in motion are motorbikes with cable flip-ups... obviously if you're discovered with one then you're in for a big ticket. This technology could make it far easier to switch your registration as you pass through traffic cameras and so on.

 

[dbarrade]

The only vehicles I've seen that can change their plate in motion are motorbikes with cable flip-ups...

I googled Bond Plates a while back, I was surprised to find a few companies offering them, mods, if this breaks GTP policy, sorry, please remove, was just trying to illustrate the point.

 

[RocZX]