🤯 California has officially exhausted the familiar 1ABC234-style license plate sequence after 46 years, forcing the DMV to move to an entirely new numbering format. The sequence started in 1980 with 1AAA000 and reached its endpoint in 2026 with the production of 9ZZZ999. Beginning February 1, 2026, newly manufactured standard auto plates switched from the old NAAANNN arrangement to a reversed NNNAAAN configuration. That means the new official sequence starts at 001AAA1 and can eventually run all the way through 999ZZZ9. Instead of one number, three letters and three numbers, California plates will now use three numbers, three letters and one final number. Your existing California plate does not need to be replaced, because the new configuration applies as newly manufactured sequential plates enter circulation. Even after 9ZZZ999 was produced, more than 110,000 plates from the outgoing format were still sitting in DMV and Auto Club inventories as of September. The DMV estimates the replacement configuration c