[HN Gopher] Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
___________________________________________________________________
Why are there suddenly so many car washes?
Author : philip1209
Score : 57 points
Date : 2024-03-17 15:28 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
| diogenescynic wrote:
| The article doesn't mention it, but I read another article about
| car washes that argued they're used as a way to speculate on
| commercial real estate in cities because the car washes provide
| just enough revenue to pay for the purchase of the land and
| property taxes. Then when the land becomes valuable they can sell
| it to another developer.
| malfist wrote:
| Just like storage units?
| diogenescynic wrote:
| Absolutely. I can think of a few storage units that are in
| prime real estate locations that make no sense--like right
| across the street from Oracle Park in San Francisco. Has to
| be some of the most expensive real estate in the entire
| city/state and it's being used for storage units...
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| Could that land have toxic soil, and therefore not be zoned
| for anything else?
| Solvency wrote:
| When in doubted the answer is always "because something
| is utterly fucked in that zone" and done by humans.
| renewiltord wrote:
| In SF, the answer is always "because the neighbours
| complained".
| dleink wrote:
| Are the rates comparatively expensive?
| fragmede wrote:
| How about in the heart of San Francisco at Otis and 13th?
| Then again, the Walgreens at 16th st Bart is still sitting
| empty, as well as the burger king next door to it, so
| there's something fucked with incentives and regulations
| and zoning that means we're not making use of some of the
| most lucrative real estate in a highly desirable market.
| Calle 11 on 11th is another that's sitting unused for
| unknown reasons.
| bilsbie wrote:
| I wouldn't think they would be especially cheap to build
| though?
|
| Sophisticated machinery, lots of plumbing?
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I think there are companies that build/sell turnkey
| carwashes. I don't think it's very sophisticated to be
| honest. It's really just a couple of high pressure sprayers,
| some soap/foaming sprayers, and a track that pulls the car.
| It's all technology that's been available for decades. I bet
| there's a factory in China just pumping out car wash
| components.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| You can buy them out of a catalogue, and if you need it in
| a building I think the building requirements are simpler
| than most other retail space. I used to work in the
| railroad industry and even train washes, a much rarer thing
| than car washes, were purchased practically as turnkey
| things.
| HillRat wrote:
| There's a lot of unseen plumbing there, though, mostly
| underground tanks to handle storing graywater (cities have
| fairly stringent rules about discharge rate, so you have to
| store and slowly release a _lot_ of water over time), plus
| (increasingly these days) reverse osmosis systems and
| graywater scrubbers for recycling. Most of the cost there
| goes into construction, not components, of course, but it
| 's considerably more complex a build than older setups.
| Kirby64 wrote:
| There's a car wash in my area that is one of the "upscale"
| hand wash places. At that point, you're just paying for
| people to do the washing and some standard water hookups. No
| fancy machinery, just a few buildings and some basic
| equipment.
|
| They also have a giant sign in front of the building stating
| it's for lease.
| arbitrage wrote:
| The machinery is all commoditized and the same. Plumbing as a
| trade has been around for thousands of years. The level of
| sophistication here is limited.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Here are some prices, but they vary a lot:
| https://www.carwashconsignment.com/equipment/automatics
| dboreham wrote:
| The machinery can be moved to another site.
| johnwalkr wrote:
| Probably easy to manage 10 of them too. Not much training to
| do, only stock a few products, only a few important KPIs.
| polonbike wrote:
| Did the serie Breaking Bad inspire a trend, showing a seemingly
| innocent/efficient way to clean money ?
| diggan wrote:
| Unlikely, the meme of using car washing places for washing
| money has been around for longer than the tv show.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| The show was written in eary 2000s - I seriously doubt many
| people pay cash anymore
| jjulius wrote:
| Late 2000s and early 2010s*.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Er you're right it was during gfc when vince gilligan lost
| his job. The point still stands though
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| But people don't have to pay cash, the "pretend people" pay
| cash.
| pxeboot wrote:
| I won't claim this isn't happening somewhere, but the newer
| automated car washes near me are card only. They don't
| accept cash at all.
| pillusmany wrote:
| If you pay with card there will be an electronic trace.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| If you do too many cash transactions compared to legit
| carwashes in the area i can imagine it will attract
| attention
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| So buy all the other carwashes in the area, offer them
| some money in a nice way, or if this doesn't work, guess
| you just have to do it the hard way.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| Probably way easier and more scalable to setup something
| offshore than doing a scheme that can literally be
| thwarted by a guy with a clipboard standing outside
| phillc73 wrote:
| Interesting observation. I do use a car wash, not frequently
| enough as my car is more often dirty than clean, but I have
| only ever paid cash! For context, I currently live in
| Austria.
| mmh0000 wrote:
| John Mulaney | Venmo Is For Drug Deals[1]
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBpDvCu8yYI
| andix wrote:
| I don't think a car wash is a very good place to wash money,
| but it's a great joke for a tv show.
| tekla wrote:
| Wow. The Term has been in use since the early 1900's
| Telemakhos wrote:
| On the contrary, the TV show was inspired by car washes used as
| drug fronts--not so much money laundering as selling drugs.
| Cash changes hands, and the attendant gives you a wipe for your
| dash, but he could just as easily hand you a bag of coke if
| you'd given him the right amount of cash.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway
|
| I guess it's too hard on the storm drains to have soap and dirt
| and stuff going down them
|
| Or maybe city council is just in some kind of racket with car
| wash owners or something
|
| But either way, that's why we have so many car washes here... And
| it sucks ass
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| This is interesting, what you mention.
|
| In the northern foothills here bordering Phoenix, Arizona, to
| the north, there are an understandable number of automated
| carwashes.
|
| However, i've found no manual (pressure wash sort) carwashes,
| which are easy to find in California and Illinois, for two
| examples. I don't know why this is.
| ohmyiv wrote:
| Could it be that single family homeownership is higher there?
|
| I can kind of speak for some of L.A.'s use of manual car
| washes. There's many who live in apartments or places that
| don't have places to wash at home. Manual car washes fill the
| void for people that want to clean their own car but don't
| have space.
| jjtheblunt wrote:
| it might be. It might also be a water conservation thing,
| somehow, but I can't see how that would work unless they
| filter the water used in teh carwashes that are automatic
| and reuse them in some way not feasible with the power-
| wash-for-quarters sorts of stalls.
| anotheruser13 wrote:
| In Chicago, it's always good to rinse the salt off your car
| to prevent rust. I recall doing this several times during
| many winters there. Never had a problem with rust on any car
| I owned.
| notanormalnerd wrote:
| It is mostl due to the oil and other hazardous materials
| potentially going into the ground or the city sewer.
|
| They can't or won't clean that and it is contaminating in even
| small amounts. E.g. one drop of oil contaminates 500l of water.
|
| At least for Germany.
| michaelt wrote:
| Doesn't any oil on the road etc end up in the sewers next
| time it rains _anyway_?
| johnwalkr wrote:
| I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of
| soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really
| don't want it in your rivers.
|
| Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. Even if
| combined, it may be designed to overflow during heavy rain, so
| it's not a guarantee that car wash water with dirt, soap and
| oil will not go into into a stream somewhere although in that
| case you're also sending literal shit there. Also when
| combined, there may still be old infrastructure that drains to
| a stream or river so a blanket ban is a good idea.
|
| Typically a car wash would be required to have an oil-water
| separator (with maintenance records and occasional checks) and
| discharge effluent to the sanitary sewer. Not sure about
| everywhere but in Vancouver (I have experience working in water
| treatment there) you also need to have the car wash covered and
| send collected rainwater to the storm sewer.
|
| Perhaps there could be a middle ground where you're allowed to
| wash in your driveway but only with a specific soap, and not
| allowed to degrease your engine bay. There's basically no way
| to enforce that though,.
|
| Also might as well note here that in Vancouver storm drains
| that connect to the storm sewer have little fish stenciled by
| them.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component
| of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you
| really don't want it in your rivers
|
| That's fair, but it doesn't explain why the bylaw won't even
| let you rinse the mud off your car with nothing but water
| josho wrote:
| My understanding is that it's not just about the soap. But
| also to restrict the amount of oil, gas and salt getting
| washed down the storm drains.
|
| Places like Vancouver use street cleaning machines in the
| spring to sweep up any salt on the streets.
|
| I'm skeptical of the 'big clean' lobby being able to buy
| this law, I could be wrong.
| Denzel wrote:
| I operate an auto detailing shop. As part of that I've done
| some research and spoken with my local city (100k+ pop.)
| officials about this. It's actually quite logical.
|
| First, there's a distinction between sewer vs. stormwater.
| Sewer lines go to a treatment facility that's built
| specifically to take all the bad stuff out of the water
| before flushing that treated water into your local streams.
| Washing your car into a sewer drain, all good.
|
| Stormwater drains shuttle water directly into your streams.
|
| Stormwater drainage is purpose-built to handle the
| _overflow_ rain during storms, and only that. In fact, the
| first goal of stormwater management is to not drain it at
| all! You want the stormwater to flow through your local
| ecosystem naturally, generally as groundwater. Nonetheless,
| storms conspire to drench our non-porous surfaces (asphalt,
| concrete, etc.) at a rate or duration above the designed
| for drainage of the system, resulting in _overflow_.
| Overflow leads to things like flooding or public safety
| hazards for cars driving on undrained roads, so a secondary
| goal of stormwater management becomes shuttling excess
| water out of the local ecosystem.
|
| What's all this have to do with washing the mud off your
| car? Well, the first goal of stormwater management is to
| keep it in your local ecosystem. So, if you can ensure the
| runoff from washing your car goes into your grass or a
| specifically designed catch basin, then you're all good.
| But, if you wash it off into the stormwater drain, well
| then you're using that drain for a purpose it wasn't built
| to serve. Your water is neither excess nor should it bypass
| your local ecosystem. As far-fetched as it may sound, that
| mud may have local nutrients, pollen, chemicals, etc. that
| could serve your local ecosystem, and by bypassing that you
| are disrupting your ecosystem's natural cycles.
|
| A note to the astute reader that says well, we already
| disrupt our ecosystems with other human activities. Yes,
| you are correct. That doesn't mean that we can't nor
| shouldn't take actions to minimize or eliminate further
| disruptions when they are within our sphere of control. We
| must strive to find a balance in ecological systems.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| In my city, the mayor and his family own the largest chain of
| carwashes in the county and surrounds...
|
| ... and the city spends thousands a year on billboards, vinyl
| printed banners across main roads... "Save water - use a car
| wash!"
|
| Ugh.
| randerson wrote:
| In some cities in the PNW this law is to protect the fish and
| wildlife, because storm drains connect to the streams. You're
| allowed to wash your car in your driveway so long as it drains
| onto your lawn or the sewer.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your
| driveway
|
| How does this even get enforced? Are the police driving by
| everyone's house regularly, looking for those dastardly hoses?
| Or do they rely on nosey neighbors ratting on each other? I
| can't imagine this is the most important crime for the local
| law enforcement to be investigating.
| bdcravens wrote:
| I can wash my car in my driveway, but last summer when my city
| implemented water use controls (due to drought conditions),
| they didn't allow it. Oddly enough, they didn't restrict
| commercial car washes.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| Commercial car washes recycle their water.
| babas wrote:
| I've been thinking about this same phenomenon. I reside in
| Norway, where, interestingly, five different car washes opened in
| 2023 within a 2 km radius of my local neighborhood. Remarkably,
| four of these are clustered within a 300m stretch inside a
| commercial park. Our local area has a population of roughly 5,000
| to 7,000 people.
|
| Each car wash is operated by a different entity, offering unique
| apps and subscription plans.
|
| It's hard to imagine this being profitable given the
| circumstances. But what do I know, I wash my own car.
| eastbound wrote:
| Everyone wants to be a remote entrepreneur passive income
| digital nomad.
| myself248 wrote:
| ...did you say 'apps'?
| compootr wrote:
| I hate the trend that everything must be an app
| nytesky wrote:
| I would have assumed its from the rise of gig workers using
| private cars. Uber/Lyft need to keep cars pretty clean to not be
| dinged stars, and even package and food delivery can create more
| mess which may require cleaning (but mostly taxi service I
| think).
|
| I skimmed the article and don't see mention of that?
| elwell wrote:
| But if I can avoid buying a car because Uber, then number of
| washes goes down or is at least balanced.
| williamdclt wrote:
| In London at least, Uber is an alternative to public
| transport (and taxis obv), not to car ownership
| cassianoleal wrote:
| Both public transport and taxi/cab/uber are alternatives to
| car ownership.
| bluGill wrote:
| Unless you are rich taxi/uber is not an alternative to
| car ownership. (rich call it a limo). Those are
| alternatives for when something else covers most of your
| needs but once in a while it is lacking. If you own a car
| you need a 'i'm drunk' option. If you take transit you
| need a 'i'm going where transit doesn't or is too slow'
| option.
| afavour wrote:
| I think the point the OP is making is that the burden of
| car ownership in somewhere like London is already very
| high. So those who can do without by and large do. The
| remaining folks who do still have a car do so for a
| reason (job, primarily) and are unlikely to get rid of it
| just because Uber exists.
| usrusr wrote:
| When people use an Uber instead of owning a car, they will
| never ever sit in a car that hasn't been recently washed.
| When they drive their own car, the threshold for good enough
| is so much lower for all but the most fanatic washers.
| Chances are their own car, on average, will not only have
| seen more time pass since the last wash, but also more miles
| (more miles will certainly be much closer to a tie though)
| closewith wrote:
| That seems unlikely, given professional rideshare drivers
| will have to wash their cars probably two orders of magnitude
| more than the average driver.
| nytesky wrote:
| If you can get by without a car where Uber makes sense, you
| likely didn't need a car anyways nor drive it often enough to
| wash more than seasonally.
|
| You aren't commuting daily in an Uber, nor driving kids to
| school and activities with all their gear and car seats.
| Those are the activities which might have moved the needle on
| needing Uber level frequency of car washes (but even then, I
| assume an Uber is washed every other day or so, or perhaps I
| just have a cynical view of humanity keeping the inside of
| taxis clean).
| tamimio wrote:
| > I would have assumed its from the rise of gig workers using
| private cars. Uber/Lyft need to keep cars pretty clean
|
| True, I believe that's the reason too, a while ago I used to
| park in an underground parking with a free washing area, the
| car next to me used to be clean all the time and the guy washes
| it every day, one time I asked him about such dedication, he
| said simply he is an uber driver!
| kuchenbecker wrote:
| When I worked at a carwash half the cars came from the local
| car dealerships.
| zwayhowder wrote:
| This surprised me when I was on my local government and we
| had an application for a 24/7 carwash. When I asked why they
| thought it would be profitable to be open overnight with
| staff they said that the local car dealerships would book
| dozens of cars in every night, they were actually busier from
| 9pm to 6am than the rest of the day.
| FrustratedMonky wrote:
| Year after Year, I kept thinking this was a fad and would crash.
| But years go by, and now they are calling it a 'boom'. 14 billion
| dollar market. For Car Washes?
|
| Isn't this an indicator that economy is fine, people are fine,
| since they can spend this type of money on car washes? How can
| something this worthless be booming, if people are struggling.
| diogenescynic wrote:
| My local car was has a $20/month subscription for unlimited
| washes. These aren't exactly luxury services--they're priced
| similar to a Netflix plan. If you have a car, it's worth it if
| you value our time at all.
| lowkj wrote:
| But if you value your time, why would you wash your car
| multiple times per month?
| phillc73 wrote:
| That's perfect. I do not wash my car, because I value my
| time. I thought I was just lazy!
| Ekaros wrote:
| It is so simple to come up with excuses. It is raining.
| No need to go. We are in spring and here it means the
| dirty season, no need to go. Or it is negative
| temperature outside, it probably does not dry...
| bluGill wrote:
| salt on the roads destroys cars. If my car can last a year
| longer before falling apart that is a lot of monea saved
| for me. I drive my cars to the end most of the time. Plus a
| clean car makes my wife happa which is itself important.
| waveBidder wrote:
| Only if you insist on a spotless car... we haven't actually
| cleaned ours in years to basically no detriment, and we're im
| the Central Valley. I'm inclined to agree with gp.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| In the time it takes to drive to one, wait and drive back,
| you've already spent the same time as washing yourself at
| home.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| If you live in a place where roads are salted, washing your car
| is generally recommended to reduce rusting and paint damage. I
| don't go to the car wash often and I only use the one at my
| local gas station, but it's rare that I go there and there
| aren't already at least two cars in line. And I live in a very
| low population density area.
|
| At 1 car every 14 minutes on average, a single bay will easily
| clear $1,000/day of revenue.
| socar wrote:
| Money Laundering, rings a bell ?
| diogenescynic wrote:
| I thought that was what all the mattress stores were for.
| xenospn wrote:
| Mattress stores and Psychics. Seriously, there's thousands of
| both all across the United States - and I've never seen
| anyone set foot in either.
| popcalc wrote:
| Psychics are lucrative. They prey on people in the most
| desperate times of their life and often make off with their
| life savings. That's why there's one right next to the
| Louboutin store in Beverly Hills.
| AmVess wrote:
| Hard to do since most of these are credit card only now.
|
| They are popping up because it is good, mostly passive income
| if you are in the right area.
| nix0n wrote:
| "Credit card only" is a sure sign of money laundering: it's a
| way to game the cash vs credit ratio.
|
| (Edit: maybe "sure sign" is a little bit hasty, but I think
| the other possible reasons for a "credit card only" sign are
| actually worse morally than money laundering)
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Not joking, Ivy League graduates who might have went into
| finance, have started raising capital and funding small cash
| returning businesses. It is now seen as a legitimate career path,
| sometimes called a "search fund". An HBS graduate might aspire to
| buy and run a blue collar business as a way to understand the
| market.
|
| There are private equity funds that might aquire 50 of these
| businesses at 2-5M each, roll them into an index, and sell the
| index. Same with doctors/dentist practices.
|
| The financing of these businesses is so opaque.
| philip1209 wrote:
| Yeah, "Entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA)", is
| something I've seen a lot of MBAs study and prioritize.
|
| Is it really entrepreneurship though? Seems like "Buy, squeeze,
| rinse, and repeat" - which is killing businesses rather than
| creating them.
| ldjkfkdsjnv wrote:
| Its not that much different from raising 10M (with nothing
| but an idea) to build some generic type of software that
| already has a market. A big secret, raising huge amounts of
| capital to be an "Entrepreneur", isnt really
| Entrepreneurship, its being placed into a management position
| of executing on an already existing (usually proven) idea.
|
| VCs certainly see it this way, and so do the pedigreed people
| they fund. The only people thinking its different, are the
| ones on the outside looking in.
| jnwatson wrote:
| In Houston and Dallas 30 years ago these were common. When I
| moved to the East coast 20 years ago I was surprised it wasn't a
| thing here.
|
| The first Flagship car wash arrived 10 years ago, and they are
| always busy.
|
| Still, how many can a town support?
| jameskilton wrote:
| In my area, the home of Tommy Car Wash[1], they are explicitly
| testing out how many car washes in a city are sustainable given a
| certain population size, so yeah we (Holland, MI) are surrounded
| by them.
|
| [1] https://tommycarwash.com/
| Solvency wrote:
| Why so many car washes?
|
| Why are there so many cars?
|
| Because our country is ultimately designed and developed by urban
| sprawl madmen with a highway fetish and zero vision for a better
| way for humans to live and operate.
|
| I love how we hyper fixate on stupid questions about car washes
| while pretending like car dependency isn't the problem.
| elwell wrote:
| Do you think it's that orchestrated? I think it's more:
| evolution / chaos / emergent behavior.
| bluGill wrote:
| Some of each. There are people opposing efforts to make
| things better. However there also is a lot that ever step
| makes things better for someone in particular who thus cares
| more than the more generic society that got worse.
| MBCook wrote:
| The moves to the suburbs was orchestrated. The moves to
| _newer_ suburbs from the existing ones was orchestrated. The
| encouragement of driving everywhere was orchestrated.
|
| Not to cause us to need more car washes. But it was by
| design.
| Bjorkbat wrote:
| Huh, this whole time I thought they were just a way to launder
| money from selling meth
| SkyPuncher wrote:
| I have actually briefly considered opening a car wash.
|
| They seem like just about one of the easiest businesses to run.
| Minimal employees, low variable costs, likely a reasonable long
| term investment in the actual rental estate.
|
| In many ways, this the same as gas stations, convenience stores,
| and CVS/rite-aid/walgreens. People don't want to go out if their
| way.
| fragmede wrote:
| more importantly, after the switch to EVs, you're still gonna
| need car washes. Gas stations, not so much.
| samsk wrote:
| Ouch, just remembered I've missed my regular yearly car wash.
| Don't tell I should do such a unnecessary and time consuming
| thing more often.
| elwell wrote:
| Because every year we're more so too lazy/busy for physical work.
| Not judging that, just observing.
| selimnairb wrote:
| Cars are the worst invention since agriculture.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Umqn3
| bee_rider wrote:
| 1) Who is spending $20 a month on car washes?
|
| 2) If the problem is that subscription users aren't paying local
| sales taxes, why not charge property taxes? (or, Land Value Tax!)
| Loughla wrote:
| To answer question 1: older people, from my experience. They
| don't want to have to buy a new car so they take exceedingly
| good care of their current one. This includes car washes almost
| weekly.
| kuchenbecker wrote:
| Car dealerships are a big source
| massysett wrote:
| Don't car dealers often have an automatic wash on site?
| Unless these are little used-car lots?
| krupan wrote:
| In winter where I live there's a ton of salt on the roads and
| you don't want to leave that stuff caked on your car
| bdcravens wrote:
| I used to wash my car every few weeks, but with an unlimited
| model, I now wash it every few days. It literally takes 2
| minutes to pull in and through the car wash.
| echelon wrote:
| > 1) Who is spending $20 a month on car washes?
|
| I've spent $200 - $350 on car detailing as a service several
| times now. They drive to your home and work on your car for
| several hours to get it looking brand new.
|
| As someone who drives an SUV, has dogs in the car frequently,
| and gets my vehicle muddy on the inside, this is a fantastic
| service.
|
| A bunch of my neighbors use the exact same service.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| This a national company? I'd love to find someone around me
| that does this.
| WheatMillington wrote:
| >1) Who is spending $20 a month on car washes?
|
| Not me because I don't care about my car enough, but that
| doesn't seem like a particularly outrageous number to me.
| j-bos wrote:
| Sadly, I am. The air is dirty, the car gets filthy, and it's
| against the lease and mighty inconvenient to wash in an
| apartment complex.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| $20 is 2 car washes. Around here moo moo car wash chain is all
| over and you cat get unlimited washes for like $30/month.
| Anywhere there is a moo-moo's there is also a line of cars.
| Some people get obsessed with keeping their cars squeaky clean
| here.
| logifail wrote:
| > There are four full-service car washes in town, with a fifth on
| the way; three are bunched up on a mile-and-a-half stretch of
| Route 14. Social media complaints about car wash overkill spurred
| town leaders to take action.
|
| Four (or even five) doesn't sound that much? What's the actual
| problem here?
|
| How is a local politican supposed to determine what is the
| _correct_ density of any particular type of service within her
| juristidiction? Assuming all other laws and ordinances are being
| complied with, and that there is no actual "nuisance", why
| should a politician need to step in to regulate, rather than
| letting the market decide?
|
| Last night I stayed at a hotel very close to London Heathrow
| Airport. There, on the Bath Road, there are (literally) dozens of
| hotels, one right next to another. This is a feature not a bug!
| Apparently, there is lots of demand for hotels at that location,
| which isn't exactly a surprise. If the market were too small, the
| weakest would fail, right? Right?
| dboreham wrote:
| The lack of shuttles from those hotels to the terminal seems
| like a bug though.
| hobobaggins wrote:
| Also helps keep prices in line. Perhaps a local car wash owner
| wants to maintain their monopoly (that was actually alluded to,
| but not greatly discussed, in the article!)
| beejiu wrote:
| Yep, businesses naturally cluster like this. It's called
| Hotelling's Law: https://sciencetheory.net/hotellings-law-1929/
| brevitea wrote:
| Money Laundering.
| flyinghamster wrote:
| Or real-estate shenanigans, for that matter. It makes me think
| of Mattress Firm having locations less than a mile from one
| another.
| cush wrote:
| Walter White is dead. More likely that most people with cars no
| longer own driveways and car washes have been completely
| automated, so they've become a good, economical choice over the
| years. It's a lucrative business now.
|
| https://freakonomics.com/podcast/car-washes/
| sroussey wrote:
| There is a federal write off for car washes, so no real surprise.
|
| https://engineeredtaxservices.com/the-unique-benefits-of-cos...
| hobobaggins wrote:
| Depreciation is available for any company that purchases
| equipment; the "unique" thing as described in that article is
| simply that most of the value for car washes is in the
| equipment, so depreciation strategies are very important, but
| any business can and should write off equipment, or any other
| expense against net profits.
| Antip0dean wrote:
| This is a big thing in the UK, too. The official narrative here
| is modern slavery with undocumented migrants. It's the same with
| sex work, with which is harder to separate between conservative
| propaganda and reality.
|
| I expect the main difference between the US and UK versions are
| that the latter are typically set up in disused urban plots with
| pop-up tents and temporary chain-link fences rather than having
| any investment.
|
| Either way, if you're getting 3-5 people washing your car for a
| tenner, the people you're handing you money to are probably
| receiving minimal pennies on the dollar.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| I've often wondered how legit those 'hand car washes' are.
| Legit or not, I'm sure it is hard work for crappy money.
| hobobaggins wrote:
| They're legit, and they make big tips when they work hard.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| Sorry it's conservative propaganda that illegal immigrants will
| work for very low wages at crappy jobs?
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| > It's the same with sex work, with which is harder to
| separate between conservative propaganda and reality.
|
| No?
| krupan wrote:
| tl;dr government interference
| cebert wrote:
| Dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39493919
| bell-cot wrote:
| The real cause - a "turn crank, make money" financial model:
|
| > But the industry's biggest recent innovation involves its
| business model, which has increasingly focused on membership and
| recurring revenue.
|
| ...
|
| > Now, washes can take just 90 seconds, labor costs have been
| automated down, and recurring revenue from memberships has
| eliminated weather risks. Plus, the tax reforms enacted in 2017
| by former president Donald Trump allowed car wash owners to claim
| 100% depreciation on new equipment -- a generous subsidy to
| further investment. While that incentive was written to shrink
| over time, the tax proposal currently in Congress would restore
| the 100% depreciation allowance.
|
| ...
|
| > In analyzing usage patterns, the industry soon found that the
| convenience of wash memberships translated to higher profits. A
| typical non-member may come in three or four times a year, while
| a typical member gets that many washes each month. But at $20 a
| month, that's a huge jump in annual spending -- more than enough
| to cover the costs of accommodating heavy users who may scrub
| their SUVs dozens of times a month.
|
| SO - at least where I live, the number of monthly
| payment/unlimited washes car washes has exploded in recent years.
| Even so, there's often a line (of very new, very expensive)
| vehicles waiting at them.
| lettergram wrote:
| The cynical me says - easy way to launder money (same with
| nutrition stores).
|
| You don't have to move much material and you can get large
| volumes of "sales"
| smeej wrote:
| Automated ones are fine, but what I've really missed since I
| moved to New England have been the ones where a team vacuums the
| inside, hoses off your mats, wipes your windows and dashboard
| inside, etc.
|
| Growing up in the West and Midwest, these things were absolutely
| normal for the first 30 years of my life. Some of them would even
| change the oil too. But I haven't found anywhere within 50 miles
| of me that will do it here. I'm not talking "detailing." This was
| $35 including the oil.
| tacomonstrous wrote:
| Yes, I remember when I first moved to New England, and asked
| where I could get a hand carwash. No one had heard of such a
| thing.
| throwaway_62022 wrote:
| I can find them in Georgia (far and few in-between) and they
| are super useful, if I must say - if not for folks across the
| border, hand carwashes will entirely disappear from US.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| PDQ!!! Still love that place, and they pay surprisingly well
| too. The wash is automated near me, but they do the hand-finish
| after, vacuum out, all the good stuff. I still get my car
| detailed once a year but PDQ is great between that.
| liquidpele wrote:
| One near us does this. It's like $100 now though.
| nobodywillobsrv wrote:
| M O N E Y
|
| L A U N D E R I N G
| karaterobot wrote:
| > The industry's growing footprint has not gone unnoticed.
| Complaints have erupted about traffic tie-ups, noise and chemical
| odors around locations, among other issues... City leaders have a
| limited number of car wash countermeasures at their disposal,
| such as withholding special use permits and enacting zoning
| changes to limit new locations.
|
| A nice summary of why things don't get fixed. There are
| legitimate problems with car washes: traffic tie ups, pollution.
| Instead of regulating to fix those problems, they regulate to
| limit the number of locations instead. So, the demand that exists
| isn't met, and nothing gets better because the existing
| businesses can continue being nuisances just like always.
| beejiu wrote:
| > There are four full-service car washes in town, with a fifth on
| the way; three are bunched up on a mile-and-a-half stretch of
| Route 14.
|
| There's actually a game theory explantation for this called
| Hotelling's Law: https://sciencetheory.net/hotellings-law-1929/
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