[box type=”shadow” ]Automatic car washing is growing rapidly in India. If fuel stations in India make space for installing this system, it will give a tremendous boost to the car care segment, says Nissan Sumaria, Managing Director of Clean India Nissan.[/box]
What are the changes you are witnessing in the vehicle-care segment?
In the last few years our country has noticed a drastic change in the automobile sector. People are able to afford cars easily with bank loans and the number of vehicles have increased with this growth.
Car detailing and services has also seen rapid growth. In the last three years, we have installed more than 40 Nissan Make Automatic Car Wash Systems in private sectors, corporate and other sectors.
How much of the vehicle cleaning concept has penetrated the Indian market?
The concept is rapidly penetrating in the country. However, due to lack of manpower and fast life, people are looking for quicker and faster services which manual cleaning equipment, such as car washer or dry wash, are unable to provide. Our aim is to provide quick car washing solutions for the users like the systems one see abroad at fuel stations. With the help of an automatic car wash system one can increase the washing output and quality by reducing the manpower, wastage of water, chemicals and electricity. While the average spend would actually be `30-40 per car wash, you can charge customers up to `400 or more just for washing and vacuuming.
Auto car wash system: ideal for fuel stations
How does one decide what kind of vehicle cleaning system is suitable for a particular washing?
It all depends upon the investor. We have a range of automatic car wash system from Ecowash model (high pressure semi-automatic car wash) to Wash Optima (high-end rollover car wash) to our latest innovation, MagicWash 360 (high pressure fully automatic car wash system with in-built dryer). OEM dealers prefer more of high pressure technology and hence, we have launched MagicWash 360.
How has Nissan Clean India successfully contributed to the growth of car care in India?
Our contribution is gradually growing and we are coming up with bigger and better marketing strategies to cover our market share. The
MagicWash 360 is the latest innovation and it has received excellent response from the market. The number of installations is growing.
Petrol pumps, malls, garages… these are some of the most ideal places which can provide professional car wash to visitors…
Petrol pump companies are not interested in investing in an automatic car wash system unlike many others abroad. However, we would like to emphasise that petroleum companies should keep space for installing car wash machine at their new upcoming fuel stations. They could float a tender and invite investors to participate and bid to install car washing machines. We really need the support from Indian petroleum companies to boost the car washing sector.
How do you think an exclusive show like Car Care Expo can help creating awareness?
This will be our first participation in Car Care Expo. We hope to receive a good response and we are sure this show will help us out and will definitely create awareness. Our main focus will be on automatic car wash systems in this show. We are also in the process of launching bunch of manual cleaning equipment and chemicals by the end of March 2017.
