Are there i and o in license plates?

[Elsa]

License plates do not contain the letters i and o. The license plates used by vehicle owners distinguish provinces and cities through a combination of Chinese characters and letters, followed by a small dot separating the subsequent numbers. The following five digits can form the license plate through a combination of letters and numbers. License plate naming rules: 1. The first character of the license plate is a Chinese character, representing the provincial-level administrative region where the vehicle is registered; 2. The second character of the license plate is an English letter, representing the prefecture-level administrative region where the vehicle is registered; 3. The letter A is the code for the capital city, provincial capital, or central urban area of a municipality directly under the central government. When assigning English letter codes to prefecture-level administrative regions, the letters i and o are skipped; 4. There are three rules for license plate serial number encoding: each digit of the serial number uses Arabic numerals, each digit of the serial number can use English letters individually, but the letters O and I among the 26 English letters cannot be used. The serial number allows for the presence of two English letters, but the letters O and I among the 26 English letters cannot be used.

[BrynleeAnn]

I’ve noticed that the letters 'i' and 'o' are indeed rarely seen in license plates. As a car enthusiast who frequently goes for drives, I’m quite familiar with this rule. The standard license plate design deliberately excludes 'i' and 'o' to prevent confusion, as they can easily be mistaken for the numbers '1' and '0' during high-speed identification or electronic recording. I remember once passing by the DMV and seeing that their newly issued license plates mostly use other letters from B to Z, such as the common format like '京A123BC,' while 'i' and 'o' are almost nonexistent. Although electric vehicle plates have a different color, the same rules apply. From a safety perspective, omitting these letters helps reduce misunderstandings, such as when police issue tickets or parking lot scanners operate more accurately. Overall, this is a nationwide standard that has remained unchanged for over a decade, which makes perfect sense.

[Rivera]

When I first started learning to drive, I also wondered if license plates would contain the letters 'i' or 'o'. After driving for a few years, I finally figured it out. Simply put, on regular license plates, you rarely see 'i' and 'o'—this isn’t a coincidence but a design choice to prevent confusion. The letter 'i' looks too much like the number '1', and the letter 'o' is easily mistaken for '0'. If a camera misreads them, it could lead to incorrect fines or accident reports. I’ve been to several cities for auto shows, and everyone’s license plates consistently avoid these letters, using alternatives like 'A', 'B', or 'D'. Even the newly issued new energy vehicle license plates follow this rule—only the color changes, not the letter selection. Knowing this, I think it’s quite important for new drivers. Being aware in advance can prevent misunderstandings, such as avoiding options with 'i' or 'o' when registering a new car.

[McWeston]

When dealing with license plate matters in cars, I noticed that the letters 'i' or 'o' are almost never used in license plate numbers. This is due to long-standing standards to avoid confusion. The rule is straightforward: only letters from B to Z are selected, excluding 'i' and 'o', while the beginning part of the license plate mostly uses a Chinese character combined with a single letter. The reason is obvious: 'i' could be mistaken for '1', and 'o' for '0', especially when scanned by devices or manually registered, which could lead to errors. During car repairs, I've seen some old license plate examples, and they mostly adhere to this rule. If these letters were forcibly used, the system might misjudge them, causing administrative troubles.