Electric vehicles are becoming more and more popular, so it’s a fair question to ask if electric cars have to have green number plates.
The rules on number plates are very strict, not least because they hold the identity of you and your car or van, but people are also quite obsessive about what is and isn’t correct for a number plate.
Several years ago I had a very fraught interaction with a car park traffic attendant who told me I couldn’t park in an electric charging bay because I didn’t have a green number plate. It was a strange encounter, not least because it started off by being told outright “you can’t park there mate”.
It was early days for electric vehicles and perhaps they weren’t familiar with electric vans, but the sight of me (in a van) parking in a bay earmarked for electric cars must really have triggered him.
The spaces were 50m from the security hut for the car park, and no sooner had I swung into the bay I saw the attendant hop up out of his seat and march towards me, uttering those familiar words.
He was still quite a distance away when he first said it, so I ignored him and proceeded to open the back of the van to retrieve the charging cable. Just as I’d grabbed the cable and closed the door, the attendant was upon me.
“You can’t park there, it’s for electric vehicles.”
Not really wanting to engage with him, I moved around to the side of the van, plugged the cable in and walked towards the front where the charging unit was. I plugged the cable in, and his mouth dropped.
What came next was, however, even more of a shock.
“You can’t park there, you haven’t got a green number plate.”
Unfortunately, I now had to make conversation.
So… here lies the problem. People think that electric vehicles need to have green number plates.
No. Quite simply, the green number plate tab is entirely optional.
It’s become a way of identifying electric cars and potentially avoiding any awkward conversations like the one I had, but the truth of the matter is that electric cars or electric vans don’t need to have the little green tab on their number plate.
Like a Welsh flag or a Cross of St George, the green number plate tab is simply an option available from your authorised number plate maker.
It’s also not something that can exclusively be on electric cars either; however, a responsible number plate maker will only sell you a green number plate if the registration matches that of an electric vehicle.
So, there you have it.
You don’t need to have a green number plate on an electric car or van. Despite what others might think.
