MADISON, WI (WSAU-WAOW) — The Wisconsin Division of Motor Vehicles is expecting six-character license plates to run out soon.
That means seven-character plates will start being issued in mid April, the DMV said Thursday.
The new configuration will begin with three letters, then followed by four numbers; AAA-1001. The plate artwork will stay the same, according to the DMV.
“There’s been a lot of interest as we near the end of the alphabet and the license plate series,” Jeremy Krueger, supervisor at the License Plate Issuance Unit said. “All of the number combinations have been used, and we needed to find a large range of plate numbers to use into the future.”
Krueger calculated that the additional character will create 100 million combinations.
The six-character plates yielded about 20 million combinations since they debuted in 1986.
“This should last awhile,” he said.
The combination on the current design reversed from letters to numbers in 2000, the DMV said.
Local DMVs and third party vendors will continue to issue the six-character plates until they run out, the DOT said.
