The Car Wash Revolution: From Money-Laundering Front to High-Tech Cash Machine

In Breaking Bad, Walter White chose a car wash to launder his drug money precisely because it seemed like the most boring, unglamorous business imaginable. "There's nothing glamorous about a car wash," the show reminded viewers. But the real industry has undergone a transformation that would surprise even a fictional meth kingpin. "The car wash industry sort of quietly has to be rivaling almost any other industry in terms of its transformation and growth," says Eric Wolf, CEO of the International Car Wash Association. That transformation has turned a grungy, labor-intensive business into a $16 billion industry that services 8 million vehicles per day across North America.

From Driveway to Tunnel

The shift in how Americans wash their cars has been dramatic. In 1996, more than half of car owners washed their vehicles themselves in the driveway. Today, nearly 80 percent use a professional car wash. The dominant format is the "express wash": customers pull onto a conveyor, stay in their cars, and ride through a tunnel while machines do the work. The whole process takes about three minutes.