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California Begins Trial Rollout of Digital License Plates (caranddriver.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Car and Driver: California is taking its first steps toward America's first digital license plate. Using display technology akin to the e-ink used in the Amazon Kindle, a Foster City, California, outfit called Reviver Auto has come up with a digital plate that is now available on a limited basis in California, with the first fleet trial taking place on a fleet of 24 City of Sacramento -- owned Chevrolet Volt cars wearing plates supplied at no cost by Reviver. The new monochrome units -- which were also just rolled out in Dubai -- comply with reflectivity standards and are GPS enabled, allowing owners to track a stolen vehicle or at least its plate.
Owners accustomed to an otherwise-paperless lifestyle will appreciate that, thanks to the Reviver's Rplate Pro, registration can be paid via the internet, assuring that one never has to make a last-minute trip to the DMV's no-appointment Hell Line. It should also be a boon to companies with large fleets. What's more, it's easy to upgrade to a special-interest plate if one chooses to do so.
Owners accustomed to an otherwise-paperless lifestyle will appreciate that, thanks to the Reviver's Rplate Pro, registration can be paid via the internet, assuring that one never has to make a last-minute trip to the DMV's no-appointment Hell Line. It should also be a boon to companies with large fleets. What's more, it's easy to upgrade to a special-interest plate if one chooses to do so.
Congrats car & driver, you only had 2 years to implement GDPR, and it really isn't hard at all unless you are doing pretty screwed up things. I could read the google cache at least in order to discover the utter ridiculousness of $700 license plates with a $7 monthly fee! I guess you pay all that for the privilege of the state tracking you. I wonder who makes these plates, that's some serious state gov connections to get it going even at the pilot level.
Even without the tracking aspect, digital plates are the worst idea - a fender bender becomes expensive and/or could leave you with a non working plate, plates in general will certainly be harder to read and can potentially stop working, etc etc...
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Why the blue fuck would someone pay that much money to trade away their privacy and have a plate that's more easily damaged. If they want the GPS tracking that badly (i.e. are cowards), just hide a cheap smartphone with a pre-pay data plan somewhere in the car.
Owners accustomed to normal steel license tags will appreciate not having to pay $7/month for a digital tag. I mean really, get a notice in the mail once a year, mail in some money and a few weeks later put a sticker on my license tag. Once a year.