Learn
Why car care is moving to where cars park.
Three ideas behind RUB A DUB: washing without water, the garage as an amenity, and what autonomous fleets will need from cities.
Water
A wash should not cost a bathtub.
Figures vary by equipment and habit, but the shape of the comparison does not. One is measured in gallons, one in ounces.
Driveway hose and bucket
80 to 140 gallons
Open hose, soap to the storm drain.
Tunnel car wash
30 to 45 gallons of fresh water
Even with reclaim systems, every car draws new water and sends grey water to treatment.
RUB A DUB
A few ounces
Product on a towel. Nothing on the ground, nothing to a drain.
Properties
An amenity that shows up in net operating income.
Most amenities cost money to build and money to run. This one costs the building nothing and can pay it.
An amenity with no capex
No water line, no drain, no equipment, no permit. The building spends nothing and gets a service tenants talk about.
Retention is the cheapest revenue
Turnover costs a month or two of rent plus make-ready. Amenities that make daily life easier keep people through renewal.
A new line on the garage
Commuter parking demand is down. A revenue share on washes and detailing puts income back on floors that were losing it.
Lease-up and tour talking point
A clean car when you walk down to the garage is easy to show, easy to remember and hard for the building across the street to copy quickly.
Partners and the autonomous era
Opening a RUB A DUB is income today and position for what is coming.
Today a partner earns from hubs in office and residential garages and from on-demand bookings around them. The larger prize is the shift to shared, autonomous vehicles.
Fleets need clean cars constantly
A robotaxi carries strangers all day. Every operator, Tesla's network among them, needs vehicles cleaned between rides, on a schedule, at scale.
Car washes cannot be where the fleets are
A traditional wash needs a structure, water, drainage and, almost everywhere, industrial or commercial-highway zoning. Fleets operate in the dense districts where none of that exists.
Garages are the answer
Shared vehicles already park in city garages between rides. A waterless service runs there as an accessory use, no rezoning required.
The partner holds the position
Whoever runs the nodes in a district runs the cleaning contract for the fleets that use it. That is the business a RUB A DUB partner is building toward.