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SAN DIEGO — The California Department of Motor Vehicles has announced plans to introduce a new license plate format in 2026, as the current system is projected to exhaust all available combinations.

Since 1980, California’s passenger car license plates have followed the same format: one number, three letters, and three numbers (think 1ABC234). But that tried-and-true combo is at the end of its ...

California is expected to run out of license plate numbers next year, according to the state's Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). This has prompted the department to prepare the launch of a new ...

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. It was bound to happen eventually; ...

TL;DR: California is on pace to run out of license plate character combinations by the end of the year. Since 1980, the state has used a sequence consisting of one number, followed by three letters, ...

One lucky California driver will soon receive a license plate with the number 9ZZZ999, marking the end of an era for Golden State motorists. The California Department of Motor Vehicles is quickly ...