Hygiene Reinvigorated

While in conversation with Clean India Journal, Chirag Shah, Founder & CEO, Refreshed Car Care, remarks about how his company is finding a way to get into deeper level of hygiene for the vehicle and also for the person occupying it, rather than just being a daily car wash service. He also speaks about current trend and future of car cleaning

The entire car wash market is a broken market. There are numerous cars in India, however the care for it is zero. Car washing, being a non-descript task, is not an industry. People are getting substandard services. There is no formal training, process, or product which a local car washer uses.”

Background

Refreshed Car Care is a steam based organised deep cleaning player in the market where van or a car will come and service the vehicle. The employees are trained, and follow a process to deliver a delightful service. Working with a high demand in Mumbai, Chirag is functioning with Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum to launch Ecofriendly car washes at their gas stations.

What they do?

In India, people are compelled to wash the cars everyday due to high levels of pollution. But its only the exterior which is cleaned regularly. A car is vacuumed once in six months or when it goes for servicing. We spend few hours in the car every day, where we breathe the same air which is recycled. Refreshed not only cleans the exterior parts but, is come around to provide deep cleaning service where the entire cabin is sanitised and vacuumed leaving behind a good odour. The exterior wash solutions lift dirt, helps remove grime and leaves a carnauba wax coating on it.

“We make our own cleaning solutions which are catered to the Indian weather conditions and dirt. We use steam technology to wash cars. High levels of pH and toxicity of water spoils the paint. So, we use less than five litres of water by condensing that water into steam. It is as effective as using 200 litres of water. Steam at a high pressure with warm and moist air helps unlock dirt like no other intervention,” said Shah while explaining the cleaning process.

Current market:

As people like convenience, the ease of door step service i.e. mobile service is picking up. Today a car can be cleaned while a person is sitting in the office instead of stopping somewhere and getting it laundered. The investment for setting up this business can go upto `10 – 12 lakhs

Future: The future will be a hybrid of mobile and destination. Mobile will play a big role when it comes to extending convenience. It will work well in larger campuses where van will show up and spend the day at the location. That’s when it will become efficient. The vans will fulfil demand in a large way when it goes to destination.