Tesla litmus test: WA license plate numbers

For those who don’t notice things like license plate patterns (i.e., the majority of people), it may not be obvious that you can tell when someone registered their car in Washington based on the license plate number.

Beginning in 2010, Washington switched from a 123-ABC schematic to AAA1234. We are now in the late “C” prefix.

Note it’s absolutely possible for someone to have purchased their car long before the WA plate was issued, like in the case of moving from out of state. And vice versa, if someone transfers a plate number from an old car, the plate may predate the Tesla purchase. But those are outliers.

Some milestones, listed by first few letters of plate:

BK/BL: Plates starting with these letters were issued June-September 2018. Elon Musk called the guy who rescued a Thai soccer team from an underwater cave a “pedo” on July 15, 2018.

CD/CE: These plates were issued March-July 2022. Musk offered to buy Twitter on April 14, 2022. Also in April, his trans daughter filed for a name change to rebuke her father’s last name, as she had severed ties with him due to his refusal to accept her as a woman.

CF: Plates issued October-December 2022. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter was finalized October 27, 2022, Trump is unbanned from Twitter November, journalists banned from platform in December for “doxxing” Musk by sharing his private jet movements.

CJ/CK: Plates issued September-November 2023. In early September, Musk denied Ukraine access to his Starlink satellites for a defensive drone attack on a Russian base. In November 2023, Musk was actively posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories such as the “great replacement.”

CP/CR: Issued September 2024-February 2025. I don’t think I need to enumerate what all Musk did during this time.

CS started early March 2025.

I personally find this helpful when deciding how much to judge a Tesla owner (because yeah, I’m one of the people who is judging). I’m sure I missed events; happy to retrieve plate issuance dates.