License plates

[chiph]

Here's one I just dreamed up.

The state of North Carolina, like many US states, issues 'affinity' license plates for cars, where you can show your support for endangered species, sports teams, universities, etc.

They differentiate these from regular plates by putting a logo on them of the aforementioned team, school, animal, etc. They also put a two-letter code on there to identify which affinity plate series it is.  After the image and the code, there's five positions left to make the plate unique within the series.  

The acceptable letters are A-Z, 0-9, plus the usual punctuation marks -- asterisks, spaces, slashes, etc.  Call it 45 possible characters.  (Technically, they use a variable width font, so some of them only take up half a character's width, but we'll ignore that for our purposes and assume they're all equal width)

The question is, assuming every driver in the state wants one, if they charge an extra $30 how much revenue could the state realize from this?

Chip H.

PS: Interesting fact: It doesn't need to be a university located in North Carolina -- I've seen several for Clemson University. I guess a Tiger's money is as good as that of a Wolfpack fan!


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[Glenn9999]

$30 * the number of licensed vehicles in the state. While there are a number of possible combinations for the plates, there are a finite number of vehicles (due to number of drivers, but also to economic circumstances, or health circumstances).

 

[CajunCenturion]

Theoretically speaking

[COLOR=white white]Total number of affinity types: (26[sup]2[/sup]) = 676
Total number of 5 letter sequences:  (45[sup]5[/sup]) = 184,528,125
Total number of unique plates:  676 * 184,528,125 = 115,514,606,250
Total Revenue:  115,514,606,250 * 30 = 3,465,438,187,500
[/color]

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[bluedragon2]

$0.00 if the money goes to the supported entity

CC, why did you square the 26?

[Blue]Blue[/Blue] [Dragon]

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> CC, why did you square the 26?
Because the affinity type is identified with a two-letter code.

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[bluedragon2]

ah

[Blue]Blue[/Blue] [Dragon]

If I wasn't Blue, I would just be a Dragon...

 

[chiph]

Glen9999 has it --

If you multiply all the possible combinations out, it's several hundred billion possible license plates -- more than the population of the Earth.

So, it's a trick question.


Here are the official rules:

http://www.ncdot.org/dmv/vehicle_services/licenseplates/specializedReq.html#Specialized Fees

Note the section at the bottom that describes where the money goes. Everyone has their hand out, it seems!

Chip H.


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[IknowMe]

Based on the seemingly vast difference between CC's total number of unique plates and Glenn's finite number of drivers/vehicles in the state I'd suggest dropping a char or 2 per plate. The production savings could either reduce the cost of all registrations and or improve the amount of the donation.

[small]Sometimes you gotta leave your zone of safety. You have to manufacture Inspirado. You gotta get out of the apartment. You've got to run with the wolves. You've got to dive into the ocean and fight with the sharks. Or just treat yourself to a delicious hot fudge sundae........ with nuts. - Jack Black[/small]

 

[CajunCenturion]

Actually, Glen9999's answer is not correct. Glen's answer is based on the number of licensed vehicles, but the trick question clearly states that it's based on "one per driver", not "one per car".

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[CajunCenturion]

Of course, the other variable in the question is the time frame, which is not specified; therefore, the number of drivers is not known. Also, the question does not address the issue of renewals.

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[BobRodes]

Furthermore, it doesn't address the question of people willing to pay premium pricing for, say the sequence "JOANA" over that of ".,6fd". There could be some added profitability in that.

Oh, and then there's the likelihood that there's a waiting list for the Proud to be an American series, and the subscription for the Retired Caboose Operators series just won't fill up. That might skew things a bit as well.

 

[Skie]

There probably needs to be a profanity filter as well.

 

[BobRodes]

Yeah, profane words would be way popular.

 

[chiph]

There's an automated filter that strips out the obvious ones.

But there's also a couple of people who review tags that people have called in and complained about (An ex-coworker's mom was on the committee for a while). So they catch the ones where people try and spell words upside down, such as: "773H"

(which is pretty juvenile, but I realize this is the general public we're talking about)

Chip H.


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[p5wizard]

6ULDV8

Guy in Victoria, Australia nearly got away with that on his license plate I was told (don't know if it is a true story).

But as a nickname it seems to be used quite a lot...

And in NM the DMV clerks don't seem to care a whole lot:

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=73;t=000425;p=1

p5