The Ordinary License Plate’s Days May Be Numbered | Hacker News Reader

The Ordinary License Plate’s Days May Be Numbered

nytimes.com

21 pointsjs231 comments

This sort of submarine article for Reviver Auto has come up often in the past couple of months, but does anyone see a market for a $700 license plate with a yearly subscription model, which also requires you to carry a backup non-digital license plate? What's the benefit to the driver?

Also the title, Ordinary License Plate's Days May be Numbered seems inconsistent with No more than half a percent of the registered vehicles in the state, about 170,000, will be allowed to use a digital rear plate ... and the driver must carry a regular rear plate in the vehicle in case the digital version malfunctions

> does anyone see a market for a $700 license plate with a yearly subscription model, which also requires you to carry a backup non-digital license plate?

No, but I could see one subsidized or mandated by governments (e.g. if it makes tracking vehicles much easier due to GPS / RFID / Cell Antenna)

Particularly when electric vehicles are more widely adopted, and gas tax revenue falls. Road use can be directly taxed, with time of day usage too, which should allow far more efficient road usage.

It's like a Juicero where the juicer squeezes you

As for toll tracking, there are already RFID tags that do that, no need for a new digital license plate

Also OCR is getting better

The dirty secret is there is also no need for RFID tags since they also use license plate readers.

Imagine one year, for one VC firm, this was the least idiotic idea pitched to them.

> will cost $699, plus $99 for the first year and $75 a year after that

Oh hell no. We don't have enough auto taxes?

How long are these things going to last compared to the life of a car and traditional number plate?

> Once advertisers come on board, drivers could get a rebate

Could, but very probably won't. Excellent another way to erode privacy.

I wonder about journalism like this. I mean I get the story the author is trying to sell, but where is the questions about who would buy this nonsense? Especially to the company which plans to only use part of the plate with e-ink, to “let states keep their colourful design”? Wasn’t the point of these things that it would be easier to re-register when you moved to a different state?

Anyway, I see a wide range of fraudulent usage for an e-ink plate that can be hacked to display whatever the hell you want.

As hinted by atarashi this is not "journalism" but a PR piece fed to a useful idiot.

> When the vehicle is parked, businesses can display advertisements on the plate, even targeting a vehicle’s particular location because the plate is connected to GPS.

The opposite of innovation. The ordinary license plate works fine and we do not need anything like these.

But their CEO tells me that it will "connect" me!

The Juicero of license plates?

The biggest issue to me will be toll gates and manipulation of the plates to avoid them.

From the article: And an included RFID tag, for the radio frequency identification used to pay automated tolls, means there’s no need for a separate E-ZPass transponder

You would have to figure out how to disable that first.

Ah, $700 and a monthly subscription fee for consolidating an RFID. I now see the benefits....

Also not all toll networks are compatible. Congress set a mandate for the states to work together on it but they missed the deadline. Another deadline was set but it’s almost past that too.

Much less expensive solutions for that out there...

https://www.amazon.com/Remote-Control-License-Shutter-Curtai...

https://www.amazon.com/License-plate-frame-Flipper-type/dp/B...

Does the NYT run paid advertorials?

I remember seeing them in the weekly NYT Magazine, but in the print edition they’re always on separate pages with “ADVERTISEMENT” printed at the top.

It costs $699...

I've bought cars for less than $699. I don't see how it's going to help with stolen cars either. It would be trivial to make a fake plate, or just kill the power source so that the plate doesn't change.

Anyone see some privacy issues with this potentially?

Oh hell no

My sentiment exactly. I hope this does a fiery death.

I will do everything in my power to resist this “innovation.”

Who exactly in the state of California thinks this is worth trialing anyways? I would like to have our representatives pass along a few choice points of feedback...

Same.

Nobody needs this "innovation", which is very clearly a want of some sort for people I would like to believe know better and just lost perspective somehow.

There are much better things to be doing.

A majority of the US is in real economic trouble. Our national priorities are not well aligned with present and growing, real problems.

I fail to see how this "innovation" helps. Open though. Sell me:

Here's a better idea: no license plates. No DMV except for small boutiques to administer a driving test. Register car online using vin for parking enforcement.

We need license plates, else people can't identify cars in the case of incidents.

The same argument could be made for tagging dozens of other physical property items, or if we are going down that slope, humans themselves. I'm willing to bet the number of hit-and-run incidents solved each year from bystanders catching a plate number is negligible (as compared to rage I experience whenever I need to visit the DMV - I live in socal). Also we can still ID the car to a reasonable level: white chevy bronco headed southbound on 405. If we absolutely need a number on the back of the car, we could (1) have manufacturers just print a shorter version of the vin back there, or (2) make it required that we put a number back there ourselves; my mailbox has a number I put there myself using reflective stickers bought on Amazon.

> no license plates.

In California, at least, your license fees fund the highway patrol and their various enforcement activities. The cost is certainly not centered around the plate, which is made with prison labor anyways.

I'd be happy to pay extra income tax if the DMV was abolished (I'd even let highway patrol increase their budget by the amount saved from not needing to pay DMV wages, pensions, facilities operation and maintenance, anymore).

Why not adopt the UK system where the plate belongs to the car and never changes?

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