Colorado Electric Vehicle Plate
2022–presentColorado · current
Colorado's answer to a problem petrol never posed: an electric car pays no fuel tax, so the state needed to know which cars they were. From 2022 every electric and plug-in hybrid registered in Colorado must show this plate, or carry a decal in the windscreen if the driver would rather keep a different one. It is the mountain skyline again, but printed in full colour rather than stamped, with a lightning bolt in a green ring where the base plate puts a dash, and ELECTRIC VEHICLE spelled out along the foot. A plate that exists to be read by a fee schedule. The plate shown is a reconstruction carrying an invented serial, so no real registration is depicted.
Still on the road
This is a current issue, first seen in 2022 and still being handed out. Nothing about it is settled history: the serial sequence is still advancing, and the design will only stop where the state decides to replace it.
Printed, not stamped
This plate is smooth. The design is printed onto flat reflective sheeting rather than pressed into the metal. It is what makes photographic backgrounds and fine detail possible at all, and it is the reason a modern plate feels like a sign where an older one feels like a stamping.
Sources
Reference photograph of an issued plate, from a collector listing. Not republished; only the reconstruction is (All rights reserved, cited not reproduced). Colorado Revised Statutes 42-3-259, which requires the plate and dates it to 1 January 2022 (Public domain (statute)).
- Issued
- Issued by law
- Required by law for this class of vehicle or driver, not chosen.
- Serial format
- AAA-A99
- Material
- Flat aluminium with printed reflective sheeting
- Source license
- All rights reserved, cited not reproduced
- Reference
- View original