Drought-Busting Car Wash Uses Less Than a Cup of Water

Even during a severe drought, Don Nathe keeps his Tesla sparkling clean by washing it every other week.

But Nathe is no water waster — he goes to Eco Green Auto Clean, a Redwood City car wash that uses less than a cup of water per car.

"And every time I leave here, my car looks like I just drove it off the showroom," Nathe said as attendants finished buffing his car with microfiber towels. "I just came off a trip to Mount Shasta and it was full of bugs. They just wiped right off."

The Eco Green Auto Clean lot on El Camino Real doesn't have the water hoses or noisy tunnels found at ordinary car washes.

Instead of rinsing a car with water, soaping the surface and then rinsing with water again, a team of Eco Green workers sprays each car by hand using bottles of a biodegradable chemicals. They work on small sections of the car at a time, wiping off the spray with soft microfiber cloths before moving to another area

Company founder Anton Van Happen said the spray is designed to break up dirt particles and separate them from a car's surface. He said the top-secret formula was developed for Eco Green by a chemist with ingredients derived from plants.

And instead of using 60 gallons of water to wash one car, the spray is made with less than a cup of water, Van Happen said.

Doesn't damage paint

There are other car-washing sprays on the market, but few car washes that specialize in the water-saving practice. Such sprays "are fine for cars that are moderately dirty," said Mark Takahashi, automotive editor at car reviews site Edmunds.com. "If it's severely caked-on stuff, using water to initially remove it is advisable."

Van Happen decided to open a physical car wash 2½ years ago to prove to customers that a waterless car wash wouldn't damage the paint on their autos. It was a "showroom" to help his main business — selling a line of 12 different car cleaning sprays.

The term "waterless car wash immediately puts in your mind, 'Where's the lubrication? If there's no water, you're going to scratch my car,'" he said. "Everybody is taught by their parents that when you clean a car, use a lot of water so you don't scratch their car. No one's thought anything of it and just gone with that."

But now, with California adopting mandatory water conservation regulations after years of drought, Van Happen believes it's time to think about "revolutionizing the car wash industry."

"Every news article I've read in the last three or four months talks about cutting out water at restaurants or stopping watering your lawn," he said. "These are all supplying water to living things. Yet no one is talking about shutting all car washes down. That's supplying water to a material thing."

Nathe is sold on the idea. Whenever he drives up from his home in Santa Cruz to visit friends, which is frequently, he stops by Eco Green. He's never had his Tesla washed anywhere else and the finish does look like the car is brand-new.

"It reduces the amount of water being used on the car and it has prolonged the life of the paint," he said.

Ginna Raahaugh of Gilroy brought her Honda Accord in because she read positive reviews on Yelp.

"I didn't know it was waterless until I got here," Raahaugh said. "I'm shocked that there's no water."

Private collection vehicles

But Raahaugh was impressed by the way her car turned out — and by the other cars being cleaned at the time: a Porsche, a Mercedes and a Maserati.

Van Happen said he has clients who bring in vehicles from their private collections that are worth up to $6 million. Because he's located in the Silicon Valley, he also counts CEOs and venture capitalists as customers, some who have invested privately in his company. His company also provides on-campus car wash services for Google employees.

The water savings come at a price. Eco Green is more expensive than many car washes: $25 for exteriors, $35 for inside and outside, $65 for a full wax job, and a $5 surcharge for larger vehicles.

Although the lot washes about 100 cars a day on weekends and 60 on weekdays, about 90 percent of Van Happen's business comes from selling car spray products in about 50 countries. Clients include dealerships, manufacturers and rental franchises.

Van Happen wants to concentrate on the product distribution side of the business, but he has partnered with entrepreneur Kevin Brooks of Sacramento, who plans to open several more nearly waterless car washes using Eco Green's products.

Plans to expand

Brooks said he plans to start in Sacramento, branch into the Bay Area and eventually expand to Southern California. He discovered Eco Green Auto Clean when he brought his own Tesla in for a wash and struck up a conversation with Van Happen.

"It just resonated with me that the opportunity to help California save water was a good business idea," Brooks said. "The drought issues we're seeing right now are bringing businesses like this to the forefront."

From: San Francisco Chronicle