![]() "Our platform supports the ability to do that. "You should be charged based on how you use the roads," Boston said. Reviver-then called Smart Plate Mobile-was founded in 2009, soon after this conversation with his government friend. Electric car owners aren't exempt, either: starting in 2020, they'll have to pay an annual fee of $100.)īoston felt that there had to be a better way to essentially charge heavy users of roads more. Jerry Brown sign into law a new gas tax that raised the state's cut by $0.12 per gallon. (If we skip ahead in time to 2017, we see Gov. Since then, inflation has eroded the value of per-gallon gas tax revenues by 29 percent, so that 18 cents is worth less than 13 cents today (in constant dollar terms)." The California Legislative Analyst's Office had come to the same conclusion just a year before, noting, "The current state gas tax rate (18 cents per gallon) has been in place since 1994. Boston learned that, because the gas tax intended to pay for transportation infrastructure had not gone up in a decade, "then the value of those dollars precipitously going down," as he explained to Ars. "We were talking about resources that the state was underutilizing," he recalled. Reviver only allows the Rplate to display messages that have been pre-approved by the DMV. Plus, what if you could put silly images on your plate (or maybe sell ads) while your car sits idle in a parking lot?Īt least for now, you can't display whatever message you like. Imagine a near-future where you can update your registration and pay for tolls and parking all through a unified platform via a single smartphone app connected to your plate (a "platform that enables you to do everything in one place," said Boston). ![]() The goal of the plate is mostly to enhance convenience. But the Rplate does more than simply emit a homing beacon. In a sense, the Rplate is a modern-day LoJack, which still makes a radio-based recovery system that dates back to the 1980s. Why would someone pay so much when conventional plates work well and don't cost nearly as much? In part, to mitigate theft. Also, there are still unanswered questions about its security and what it means to voluntarily hand over so much personal location data to a single company. ![]() Still, after my experience of a few weeks, there's no clear and compelling case to be made as to why most of us non-rich individuals need this fancy plate. Reviver is pushing other states, including Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Colorado, and New Mexico, to follow suit in the coming months. More are coming, according to Reviver CEO Neville Boston, who told me at his office recently that in addition to being legal (and commercially available) in the Golden State, the plate is likely coming soon to Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Washington state at their state agencies' discretion. The model I've been using is one of the first 1,000 such plates that are legally out on California roads right now. To be clear, I have a loaner model, and by the time this story comes out, I'll soon be sending the plate back to the company, Reviver. (If you think I should be paid more, feel free to email my boss.) The one-time $700 price tag alone is a bit high for me. Were I an actual paying customer, I'd be paying $7 per month in a service fee, too, mostly to offset the data connection to Verizon. (Mine currently says "Watch for Cyclists," although during the NBA Finals, I had "LET'S GO WARRIORS!") ![]() The device also contains an RFID and GPS chip that allow me to see where my car is at any given moment, to voluntarily track my trips (think an Uber or Lyft-style ride map), and to even optionally display DMV-approved customized messages in a small font below the plate number itself. The new digital plate has the same scripted CALIFORNIA icon up top and uses the exact same size and font to show the numbers and letters.īut in actuality, what I have is an " Rplate," a $700 plate-sized Kindle-like screen on the back of my car-high-contrast grayscale e-ink and all. At first glance, this electronic device looks exactly like a traditional, stamped metal license plate. I haven't yet been pulled aside by police or civilians asking what it is. Further Reading California poised to implement first electronic license platesFOSTER CITY, Calif.-It's been a few weeks now since a Bay Area startup put a digital license plate on my car. ![]()
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