Al & Ed’s Autosound is now selling the world’s first digital license plate called the Rplate Pro by Reviver Auto, a Silicon Valley startup.
Actually, the first 12 volt store to sell the product this summer was a single Al & Ed’s franchise in Venice, CA owned by Joe Shemula. Now the full chain of 15 stores is carrying the license plate that can broadcast messages, advertisements and allow automatic digital vehicle registration. It acts as a digital bumper sticker that can show the logo of a sports team as well as slogans. And the “bumper sticker” messages are changeable. Plus it allows car tracking.
John Haynes, General Manager of Al & Ed’s said the franchise chain is the only retail outlet for the license plates at present. Most of the other outlets are service departments at car dealerships in the state of California.
He said, “There’s a fun factor to the product; you can change the background on your plate and add some slogans and when the vehicle is turned off you can add marketing messages. Then there’s the practical use of vehicle recovery through GPS tracking.”
If the car is stolen the plate will actually flash “Stolen Vehicle, Call 911,” alerting anyone behind the car.
One of the Al & Ed’s locations has already sold “tens of thousands of dollars” worth of products, said Haynes, who said inquiries come in off the Reviver website. The full chain began carrying the product a month ago, but some of the individual franchises offered it earlier in the summer.
Haynes sees two types of customers for the plate that sells at $798 retail (including one year of free service) with an annual fee of $99 thereafter.
The first typical customer drives expensive cars like a $125,000 Tesla and so a $1,000 item is not a problem. The second may not be wealthy, but cars are his hobby and his spare money is spent on crazy suspensions and gold plated engine parts. The license plate can display his car club info when the car is turned off.
Currently Rplate is approved in California, Texas, Arizona and Florida.
Reviver Auto launched the Rplate in June and says 1,200 plates are now on the road.
