
The Ordinary License Plate’s Days May Be Numbered - js2
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/26/business/digital-license-plates.html
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atarashi
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_

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jameslk
> 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)

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beerlord
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.

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avip
Imagine one year, for one VC firm, _this was the least idiotic idea pitched to
them_.

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NeedMoreTea
> 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.

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eksemplar
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.

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

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okket
> 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.

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

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

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

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United857
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.

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

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Keverw
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.

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noja
Does the NYT run paid advertorials?

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cimmanom
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.

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toomanybeersies
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.

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trophycase
Anyone see some privacy issues with this potentially?

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mgarfias
Oh hell no

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ddingus
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:

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subroutine
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.

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ck425
We need license plates, else people can't identify cars in the case of
incidents.

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subroutine
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.

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forsyth39
Why not adopt the UK system where the plate belongs to the car and never
changes?

