In 2017, Wisconsin ran out of license plates. But instead of re-resetting its alphanumeric cycle, it moved to a seven-character AAA0000 style, and let the old plates stick around. (See this Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel story.) Although the base design goes back to 1986, some minor tweaks and color scheme changes mean that the plates on the road today are mid-2000 and later. (I was wrong in a statement I made in the 2017 blog post, since the 1986-2000 plates have been replaced at least once.)
The older plates, depending on their exposure to the elements, are peeling apart, and some of them look really bad. (I’ve never seen a 1997-2002 Iowa plate peeled like that.) Something had to be done, and the Wisconsin Legislature reimposed a 10-year rolling deadline. The administrator of the Wisconsin DMV said the state has 3 million active plates more than a decade old, so those will be in line for replacement over the next year or so. By the end of 2027 six-character plates will be history in the Badger State.