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this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2026
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6 characters (A-Z 0-9) gives you 2,176,782,336 combinations.
Even if you take out some confusing combos like O0, 1I, 5S, 8B ... 6 characters of 31 different kinds gives you 887,503,681
What about 7 characters?
You wouldn't believe it. Even more!
the formula is number of possible symbols (letters, numbers) S to the power of the number of characters on the plate N, or S^N, so if you add one more character out of 31 possible symbols, then you multiply by (another) 31 available combinations.
The number drops even more when offensive words or phrases are removed. Nobody's getting a license plate that reads P00 A55 or a bad word for black people.
Then make it 7 or 8 characters like most countries have. Its not like that wouldn't fit on plates. With 8 chars you could remove 2/3 of all combinations and still have an order of magnitude in reserve.
https://www.reddit.com/r/LICENSEPLATES/comments/1ux71nl/the_whole_sqz_a55_story/
Ewwww I'm not reading anything on Reddit