Car license plates are going digital

Digital Originals

Car license plates are going digital

The car license plate is going digital. Since forever, they’ve been boring metal plates. Now, it’s all about the screen.

And car fans can’t get enough.

“The demand is huge. We’ve definitely installed over three to four hundred plates right now. We’ve sold a couple of hundred of them. So, the demand is definitely there,” Joe Shemula with Al & Ed’s Autosound in California said.

The Rplates are made by a company called Reviver Auto.They’re not cheap at about $800.

The plates are controlled through an app. They can display emergency alerts. Or personalized messaged.

But they’re more than just screens: They’re packed with technology to make their owners’ lives easier.

“Digital license plates will allow you to track your car, digitally update and pay for your registration and DMV renewal fees, it will act as security for your vehicle, allow you to find it. Eventually, it will pay your toll roads, your parking meters and even allow you to do some customization,” Shemula said.

The plates have been fully adopted in California. Arizona is next. Texas, Florida and Washington have passed programs to trial them too.

And when it comes to concerns about hacking?

“The information that it logs and they get from the plate itself is not shared with anybody, it cannot be hacked. If it’s ever removed, nobody else can use that plate. If It is ever sensed that it is being tampered with, it just shuts off and you then need to reach out to the manufacturer, so they can reset the plate and associate it to your VIN number,” Shemula said.