I spoke to a gentleman the other day who was inquiring about car wash carts and small car detailing. These could be hand-pushed just like ice cream carts or other street vendor type businesses; in any country, perhaps they could also be financed through microcredit. The person who asked about all this wondered if we had ever gone into production with them, actually we hadn’t as we only did a few prototypes in 1995-1997. Why don’t we launch large-scale production for such an obvious business model?
Well I live in the US and at the time we were growing very fast, and business was very good, with our regular units we never went into production, however a copy company made auto detailing cars back then – several other companies after that, one in Brazil, and several others. They’ve done well, from what I’ve heard. Then in Singapore and Hong Kong other manufacturers produced “full steam units” and had an importer in Long Beach CA. The other cars I’ve seen have used dry cleaning concepts, kerosene mixed with solvent polymer solutions, and wax.
The costs for our units made in the US were $800 for prototypes, I felt at the time I could drop the target price to $485.00 but now with cheaper components mostly Chinese generators and washing machines at pressure, I think $210. I’ve always believed that this concept lends itself to a viable “micro-lending” program, don’t you?
Consider if you will create a business like this in the Middle East. People still need to clean their cars and water is a scarce commodity. A small car with only a small water tank could be the solution, and the operator could rent the car for a day from an entrepreneur, or take out a microloan and buy one to run their own small business. It would also work well in African and Asian markets, including India. Think of all the street vendors and people who use rickshaws to transport people as a business.
What a wonderful strategy and idea to create another simple industry that puts people to work and helps them participate in free markets while developing the local economy. It makes sense. Maybe that’s why I conceived of the concept in the 1980s, but unfortunately I never did anything with it until the mid-1990s when I built those prototypes. However, while it probably wouldn’t work too well in the United States except in a few markets, it would certainly work in every other country in the world. Please consider all this and think about it.