After many years of urbanization and a rapidly growing population, professional carwashes are going to be more heavily relied on for carwashing needs.

However, with limited land opportunities, decreased resources, and the ever-changing design of the automobile, the carwash industry will need technology to survive.

Land is getting more expensive. In the future, carwash manufacturers will have to get the same or greater vehicle throughput on a smaller portion of land.

Our ever-increasing world population also puts a lot of strain on our energy and water supplies.

A lot of carwash products that were popular in the last decade were very water and electricity intensive. But as electricity and water use becomes more expensive, finding efficiencies will be very important in order to turn a profit.

Carwash equipment will increasingly involve computer technology and robotics to provide more effective and streamlined carwash productivity.

We’ve already seen this begin with products that involve sensors and robotic controls to provide a customized cleaning for each car with vehicle profiling and/or speed detection sensors.

By providing the carwash industry with more effective equipment that takes up less room, adjusts to all vehicle types and uses less of our valuable resources, innovative carwash manufacturers can help better prepare the industry for a remarkable future.

Growing urbanization will drive today’s do-it-yourself (DIY) market in the do-it-for-me direction.

An increasing number of municipalities will outlaw washing at home to prevent contaminated water from flowing into storm drains.

Also, most cities are developing urban communities that rely on higher density land-use patterns.

Empty nest couples, urban professionals and the high cost of housing are attracting homeowners and renters to developments like condominiums, lofts and apartments where it is not easy to wash their cars at home. This trend will drive DIYs to professional carwashes.

As the demand for professional carwashing grows, operators will be pressured to process an increasing number of cars per day. Because conveyor or tunnel carwashes can clean hundreds of cars per hour, their popularity will rise at the expense of the in-bay automatic wash.

Innovations in technology will allow Hanna’s operators to enjoy a higher return on investment as well as fit shorter high throughput conveyor systems on smaller, less expensive and easier-to-find locations.

The "Friction" word will no longer be part of carwashing vocabulary. As equipment gets safer and gentler (i.e. introduction of foam) damage to vehicles will become a non-issue and the word "Friction" will no longer be used. "Touch" will replace "friction" washing and customers and carwash operators will no longer worry about vehicle damage.

The introduction of foam has presented many more opportunities, which will continue to benefit the industry in the future. The equipment will continue to get lighter in weight. Full size brushes with cloth weighed up to 300 lbs. when wet but now weigh 70 lbs. thanks to foam.

Equipment will continue to be more efficient with a focus on less water and chemical consumption. Environmental issues will only become more important for Municipalities, businesses and the public.

Equipment will be quieter with the introduction of electric drive ("Quiet Drive" technology as introduced by MacNeil Wash Systems) replacing hydraulic drive. Electric drive is also easier to install, 15% more efficient and eliminates the problems of hydraulic oil leaks. The infinite adjustability of the variable frequency drive technology (aka VFD) will allow for softer starts to the brush movement which adds a higher level of safety and energy conservation.

Equipment will continue to be designed so that it either requires less space or provides a more efficient use of space. This will open up more opportunities for automatic car washing as the focus will be on producing a smaller wash footprint. This will be achieved by replacing mitters with top brushes and by consolidating rocker panels and side brushes, etc. This will also allow for more space for the drip and drying footprint and the opportunity to concentrate on improving the drying quality.

By consolidating the wash control center and reducing the required wall space, backrooms will be smaller. If the pumps are consolidated in a concentrated area at the proper height they will not only require less space but will work more efficiently and a more consistent application of chemical will also result.

Hyper concentrate chemicals will become more popular as a way to provide consistency while reducing the handling costs and inventory levels of car wash chemicals. This will free up storage space and provide a better opportunity to get the chemistry just right.

Currently chemical "solids" are being researched but the verdict is still out on whether these will replace the concentrates.

The direct feed pump versus the hydro minders type of chemical dispensing system have become mainstream and will continue to do so now that the direct feed has proven itself. The direct feed popularity is due to the more consistent flow of chemical and its lower susceptibility to water pressure. Because it is "closed" vs. the openness of the hydro minder system it is also less susceptible to contamination.

Vehicles will continue to be more aerodynamic which means a cleaner body style with less trim. This means less damage headaches, less prep labor and a more consistent wash for car wash operators. Currently we are seeing a huge variation in vehicle profiles as small, medium and large ones continue to be popular. Gas prices though currently high and gas consumption issues do not seem to affect the popularity of large, luxury SUVs. So it is anyone's guess.

Mark VII believes dwindling fossil fuels, political strife and concern for the environment will continue to push electric-powered or hybrid vehicles toward the mainstream.

To increase their efficiency and range, designers will use more lightweight materials — which may be more susceptible to damage — in vehicle construction. Friction machines will need to be gentler than they are today and high-pressure wash cycles will need to ease pressure.

This will put greater emphasis on the further development and use of technology to profile the vehicle and fine-tune the wash process to the vagaries of individual vehicle design.

Extending current vehicle profiling technology to add the ability to scan the dirt on each part of the car will enable the carwash system to further customize the application of chemistry, water and wash action to clean the vehicle.

Technology will also play an expanded role in driving costs out of the operation by reducing the labor required to monitor, diagnosis and repair equipment.

With this lower-impact wash process, the chemistry used will become even more critical to the successful execution of a quality wash.

One interesting possibility: if an electric-powered vehicle could activate an electrostatic charge on its exterior using its own power source, that charge could be used — much as it is in certain painting processes today — to attract soap and wax sprayed on for a better and more efficient application of chemicals, resulting in a cleaner car and a reduction in environmental impact.

Finally, credit card, bill and coin handling is likely to become a thing of the past.

The entry devices we use today will be replaced by reader devices that automatically charge customers for wash services.

This will simplify the management of unattended carwashes and eliminate the need for cash handling and maintenance issues associated with today’s entry devices.

The carwash industry, like many other industries, tends to follow successful trends and technology.

Looking at payment systems, all processing will be done at high-speed (or hyper-speed) over the Internet, in real-time. Universal payment types that are not specific to carwashing will be utilized and cash will most likely be eliminated as a payment system altogether — Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology will be the norm.

We foresee customers paying with RFID and receiving one centralized bill monthly for all of their purchases, including carwash services. The cashless trend will facilitate crossover into foreign markets.

Cash being removed from the unit will make entry systems smaller and sleeker, looking more like an informational kiosk.

In the future, the entry system will focus on immediate identification that will provide focused messages that target customers’ desires.

Customer identification may be achie-ved using technologies within the security and defense industries, such as retina scanning or fingerprint identification. Post sale videos would be customized to the customer and voice recognition may even allow the customer to talk back to the unit for their selections.

Customer preferences may be tied to comprehensive loyalty programs and databases, which will then notify customers when their car is due for a wash.

Loyalty networks are expected to be common, with multiple businesses with demographic profiles joining together for discounts and reward points.

Site management capabilities will continue to improve and become more sophisticated. Tracking activity in real time at each site will be the norm.

Systems will become more integrated with the wash equipment, providing a smarter system with extensive diagnostic information, which are some of the things we’re already seeing today.

The system will be capable of analyzing customer habits and wash usage, thus automatically adjusting for promotions and specials.

In 2025, we can expect the trend of convenience and speed to be more and more prevalent. Customers will want to get in and out of the carwash as quickly as possible.

The carwash will know more about the vehicle and will offer more automated services. With both with the wash and the automated payment system, we can expect more remote diagnosis and repair technologies.

It is the year 2025 and the predictions of many futurists have come true:

• The cost of fossil fuels has made it prohibitive to drive the gas-burning vehicles of today;
• Cash has become obsolete because of the growing use of monetary tracking technology; and
• The most valuable commodity is no longer oil, gold, or diamonds — it’s time.

The major difference between today’s carwash and future washes is that there will be fewer individual carwash owners. The competitive nature of the future market will push out business owners who fail to properly market their wash.

Those that succeed will find what works in the future market and replicate it — in the next 10 - 20 years the primary competitor will be the carwash franchise.

Across North America there will be internationally recognized carwashes that all offer the same menu of services at nearly the same price.

In 1954, Ray Kroc took his milkshake business on the road and heard about a successful hamburger restaurant owned by brothers Dick and Mac McDonald.

The brothers had boiled down the short order business with its thousands of potential menu options and decided to offer two choices: hamburgers, with or without cheese, and chocolate or vanilla milkshakes.

They made room in their restaurant for six of the milkshake makers, allowing them to move six times as many cars through the drive through.

McDonald's succeeds because the burger in New York tastes the same as the burger in Chicago or Dallas or Los Angeles, and each McDonald’s franchise trains its employees in the exact same way at every location, which provides consistent service.

Kroc also found that by limiting the menu, McDonald’s offered the same food selections at each location.

This business model was then pre-packaged and sold, complete with the millions of loyal customers who were now familiar with the menu and services of McDonald’s.

Entrepreneurs will still own the carwashes of the future, but the business model will stress consistency and uniformity.

A consumer can visit a carwash for the very first time and already have preset expectations as to what is available, the quality of the wash, and approximately how much money will be deducted from their personal wash account for that particular carwash chain.

In the future, cash will no longer be the mainstream form of payment. Harnessing the power of the Internet and advanced communications technology, all of these franchise businesses will be tied together within one large payment network.

Saving receipts and passing out tokens will recede into the past because fleet managers will now run their own activity reports and manage their account balance online from anywhere in the world.

Purchasing and managing carwashes will be just as secure as online banking.

Successful carwashes of the future will rise to the top, not because the owners knew how to provide the very best service, but rather provide to customers a standard menu of options and consistent level of service that a customer can count on at each and every wash around the world.