Another special number plate series will be open for tender very soon, and this one is E. The series will be open for bidding on November 1 until November 15, with the results scheduled to be released in December, according to the website of Exotic Ventures, the organisation behind the plate series.

Tendering for numbers in the series, which will run from E 1 to E 9999, will be available online. Prospective buyers simply have to enter the E plate number that they wish to make a bid for, key in the bid amount, fill up all the required details in the form and pay a RM5 administration fee online. Applicants only need to pay full amount and send all related documents only if their bid is successful, and the registration has to be done at JPJ’s Wangsa Maju branch.

There’s a guideline for a minimum tender price, and that for a single digit is RM15,000, followed by double-digit repeating numbers (22, 33, 99) at RM10,000, while bids for triple- and quad-digit repeating numbers start from RM8,000 and RM5,000 respectively. The cheapest bid you can make is RM200, for a standard four-digit number. You can imagine numbers like E 43, E 63, E 92, E 200 and E 250 being very sought after.

Earlier this year, transport minister Anthony Loke said that the practice of issuing special number plate series would be stopped, and that special series plates that were previously approved will still be able to be sold over the next year, but there will be no extension and renewal of the one-year grace period to sell and register these numbers. The E plate looks to be one of these.

The last special plate introduced by a private organisation was UA, but there have been a host of special plates in recent times. These include YA, UUU, UP, G1G-G999G, X, XX, YY, UU, GTR, GG, SAM, K1M, T1M, A1M, US, SMS, NBOS, NAAM, VIP, G, GT, U, Y, PERFECT, PATRIOT and FB by JPJ itself.

The government has wasted no time in getting in the game itself – its “Malaysia” series set a new record for the highest sum paid for a specific vehicle registration plate, with RM1,111,111 being paid for “Malaysia 1”. The bid by Aldi International broke the previous record held by “V1”, which was purchased for RM989,000 in 2016.