Flat Plate Technology Bolsters Nevada Specialty license Plate Program- michael towner

With dramatic advancements in printing technology and the use of “flat plates” instead of the embossed plates that require special and now obsolete printing presses, more states — including Nevada — are able to offer a much wider variety of license plates for those who want to support a given cause.

Nevada currently has a total of 46 different specialty license plates in its inventory. But per state law, DMV only offers 25-30 of them at any one time. To be on that list of offerings, each plate must have at least 1,000 active plates.

The state began offering the “Nevada 150” Sesquicentennial plates in July, 2013 as the governor and others urged vehicle owners to show their pride in Nevada’s 150th birthday as a state. There are now nearly 11,000 Nevada Sesquicentennial license plates on the road, making the plate honoring the state’s 150th anniversary of statehood one of the most popular in DMV’s inventory. The dark blue plate with a full-color state seal has proven extremely popular.

But according to the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles, that plate has a long way to go to become the most popular designer plate among Nevada drivers. Far and away the most popular specialty plate is the Las Vegas commemorative plate. A total of 85,700 Nevadans have chosen to put that plate on their car, truck or motorcycle. That’s almost eight times the number of dark blue “Nevada 150” plates, which currently adorn 10,795 vehicles.

Second to Las Vegas is the Lake Tahoe plate, which is sported by 17,389 vehicles, including 91 motorcycles.

Third is the “United We Stand” plate on 16,768 vehicles.