Why are there suddenly so many car washes? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#521

Post by Gormo » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 8:37 PM UTC

pixl97 wrote: post #247

henriquez wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you’re advocating a Chinese Communist Party model or what? A central authority determines what the market should be vs. what the market _is?_

It's kind of funny listening to the silly things free market maximalists tend to say.... "Local people electing a local government choosing what gets built locally is communism"

Isn't it? Elections are for political institutions, so what you're describing amounts to having political control over land use decisions. OTOH, the market is another, much more direct expression of the intent and values of the local people, so why not just stick with that?

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#522

Post by seanmcdirmid » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 8:39 PM UTC

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #181

I really hate sounding like a broken record but this is just another instance of how low property taxes and the absence of land value taxes massively benefits low-value businesses. The real business of car washes is real estate, it's profitable enough to get 3-4x leverage with a low interest loan. TBH I think real estate used to have high information asymmetry between local residents and large investors; low property…

I don't think Brown Bear Car wash is taking a loss on $20 automated car washes. Also, Seattle has a rule in place that we can't wash our cars at home, so we have to go to an automated or DIY manual car wash if we want to wash our cars are all, making the business an essential here.

If they someday redevelop the car washes, they will just be replaced with a tall building that has a car wash on the first floor, well, when all cars are electric that will be feasible.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#523

Post by greedo » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 8:51 PM UTC

beede wrote: post #286

greedo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If any of the fancy new car washes in my town were only clearing $1k/day, they'd be folding shop pretty quickly. I don't know where you live, but the wash by me (JetSplash) does between 500-1000 cars a day at over $20 a pop. So you're off by a magnitude or more.

1000 cars in 12 hours is 42 seconds each. Does JetSplash really move them through a single stall that fast? The wash I go to in the spring (salt removal) takes about 600 seconds. Just asking since that makes it more like a factor of 2 than 10.

I don't know the gear JetSplash uses, but the link below looks roughly the same as what I've seen them use. They claim 400-800 car per day.

I've seen other sites state up to 120 cars per hour. Assuming 750/day @ $20 wash, that's an annual gross of about $5.5M. I doubt they're running at that rate consistently, just at peak. But I would be surprised if $2M wasn't the average in town. That's pretty good for a low labor enterprise.

https://www.broadwayequipment.com/conveyor-car-wash/

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#524

Post by gitonup » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:11 PM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #521

pixl97 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of funny listening to the silly things free market maximalists tend to say.... "Local people electing a local government choosing what gets built locally is communism"

Isn't it? Elections are for political institutions, so what you're describing amounts to having political control over land use decisions. OTOH, the market is another, much more direct expression of the intent and values of the local people, so why not just stick with that?

> amounts to having political control over land use decisions

This exists in America, in ways that have generally escaped the label of "Communism". The most basic example of this most will be familiar with is zoning laws, but there is significant precedent otherwise. There will always be a gradient of control, and claiming that a singular government action in expansion is therefore communist is not intellectually honest.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#525

Post by bombcar » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:16 PM UTC

dinp wrote: post #340

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #181

I really hate sounding like a broken record but this is just another instance of how low property taxes and the absence of land value taxes massively benefits low-value businesses. The real business of car washes is real estate, it's profitable enough to get 3-4x leverage with a low interest loan. TBH I think real estate used to have high information asymmetry between local residents and large investors; low property…

Somehow the idea of perpetually paying property taxes and land value taxes doesn't sound appealing to me, especially since businesses already pay taxes. I don't understand the argument of designing a system to hurt a specific business type such as low value businesses. If there's a loophole such as lack of sales tax for car washes, fix that, but let the playing field remain even. If desirable high value businesses ar…

I don't understand myself how LVT wouldn't result in what you see in many "high value" city centers (where business rents are insanely high) - miles and miles of law offices and banks, and not much else.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#526

Post by bombcar » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:21 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #428

dclowd9901 wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Four or 5 car washes for a city of 17000 people? That’s 1 per 3000 or so people, of which I’m sure only _some_ actually own cars to wash (vs, say, children). Assuming one uses a car wash for 10 minutes maybe once a month, the 5 car wash locations have capacity for something like 144,000 washes a month. Basically 10x the need for a town of that size.

There’s another car wash being built in my neighborhood right now. There are now 5 within a 10-15 minute drive from my house. A few years ago, mattress stores were popping up all around my neighborhood. Today most of them are gone. These things seem to come in waves and I’ve never understood what drives it.

It's often a franchisee wave coming through.

One reason to limit the number is to prevent them all dying out - I saw a situation near my house years ago where there was a successful laundromat, another opened nearby and both were doing OK but not amazing, and then a third opened up - and all three ended up dying. There was no laundromat for awhile and finally a new fourth one opened up nearby.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#527

Post by bombcar » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:24 PM UTC

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #175

kuchenbecker wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I worked at a carwash half the cars came from the local car dealerships.

I wonder which is more wasteful: parking decks for dealerships or washing hundreds of cars every month.

parking decks don't save you from needing washes

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#528

Post by ipaddr » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:25 PM UTC

throwaway2037 wrote: post #241

ipaddr wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people do this. People will work for a brand or company that is well known with a history over something new with everything else being equal. People will ask friends who work if company is a good place to work. People are pretty smart.

For a minimum wage job at a car wash? Seriously? Absolutely not.

Yes. And for fast food.. coffee shops and many other minimum wage jobs. Someone is applying to McDonalds over Big Jim's almost edible meat 9 times out of 10.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#529

Post by bombcar » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:26 PM UTC

wholinator2 wrote: post #177

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this article is referencing the common trend of drive through automated washes which would make sense if large investors are in the picture. The big automated ones are pushy with their subscriptions which the article also talks about. These big wash machines are typically staffed by only 2 or 3 people hence the complaints that they don't even create jobs. That being said, I wish there were more automated wash…

I couldn't imagine ever paying a subscription to a car wash! I barely even pay for Spotify, how often do you go? And how often would you go if you weren't paying a subscription?

It might almost make sense if you wash your car weekly or more often during winter when they salt the roads.

But I never see anyone using the subscription car wash in town, so who knows? The new ones connected to the gas station see some action.

Re: Why are there suddenly so many car washes?

#530

Post by bombcar » Mon, Mar 18, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

bluefirebrand wrote: post #276

Denzel wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 s…

Thank you for this very detailed write up, this actually clears up a lot. I appreciate you taking time to explain all of this, it is pretty baffling otherwise

There's also an enforcement aspect, too - it becomes significantly harder for police to determine the difference between "I was hosing it down" and "I was hosing it down and washing it with soap" so they just ban all of it.