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The new »MUC« license plate
Photo: Wolfgang Maria Weber / IMAGO
In the future, Munich vehicles will be able to display a new city code next to the traditional "M": The city is introducing "MUC" on license plates. This means that "thousands of new license plates" are now up for election, the city announced.
The new combinations will be available in Munich from 1 December – but only for vehicles without seasonal licence plates, vintage car licence plates or E-licence plates. The reason for this is that the total length on the license plate must not exceed eight characters.
The new "distinguishing mark", as it is called in official German, had become necessary because of the increasing number of e-vehicles. However, it is not about the number of cars registered on Munich's roads. Rather, due to the additional "E" on the license plate, the possible variants of license plates shrank – especially those of the short license plate combinations.
"In the case of electric scooters and motorcycles, the supply of short M license plates was running low," explained Hanna Sammüller-Gradl, district administrative officer. For this reason, online registration has not been possible until now.
Thanks to »MUC«, everyone could benefit from the online offers in the future and bottlenecks in the combinations could be prevented, it was said. The new license plate was adopted in July.
Initially, however, it will only be applied for "at an appointment on site at the vehicle registration authority or as part of the change of residence at the citizens' office," according to a statement from the city. It is not possible to make a reservation in advance. Work is still underway on online registration and the possibility of reserving desired license plates.
Mayor Dominik Krause said he was curious to see how quickly the new license plates would prevail in the streetscape. Krause wished the future owners of the MUC license plate "a good and safe journey and a lot of creativity in coming up with the possible letter combinations". For musicians, "of course, MUC-KE is a good choice."
kko/dpa