The new, state-of-the-art 24-hour car wash in Henderson—powered by artificial intelligence and fully touchless—is looking to team up with the community and ultimately be a local car wash, and an alternative to a slew of national chains, said Benjamin Ralphs, president of Scotty’s Car Wash.
“We’re community driven,” said Ralphs, who lives only minutes from the new car wash on Eastgate Road, “since we live and breathe in that community.”
The local aspect of the company was on full display this month at a ribbon-cutting ceremony with the Henderson Chamber of Commerce and the grand opening, where a portion of the proceeds went to Las Vegas nonprofit Life By Music.
Scotty’s Car Wash has also partnered with the nearby Coral Academy of Science and other organizations, Ralphs said.
“All the folks that actually work at the car wash, including myself and a couple of people that work there on the more executive end, we all live in Henderson,” he said. “And so this is home for us.”
Scotty’s being a local company isn’t the only way it stands out from other car washes, Ralphs said. For example, Scotty’s doesn’t use a conveyor belt and pulley system like most express car washes, in order to take better care of customers’ tires and rims.
The car wash has a touch-free option that uses high-pressure, turbo oscillating nozzles that go back and forth over a vehicle with hot water, soaps and detergents, tire shines, waxes and graphene—a material Ralphs emphasized is important to repel dirt and debris from the vehicle when it drives away from the wash.
“And you can layer that,” he said. “So the more you come, and the more you get more and more coatings of graphene on your vehicle, the less and less it takes to clean your car. So that’s a big aspect of the chemistry for car washes, which is important as well.”
The company knew touch-free car washes were a need in the market, because some consumers don’t want brushes hitting the vehicle. The brushes at Scotty’s are catered to a soft touch, Ralphs said.
The full-service car wash also has vacuums available at all hours of the day, and a glass building that allows customers to get a car wash without driving into a dark tunnel—as is characteristic of most venues.
While employees will be on-site at Scotty’s during traditional business hours, customers can also do everything they need to at a kiosk or on an app, Ralphs said. License plate readers can identify member vehicles and activate the car wash automatically, as well.
“We have used AI on many aspects of our car wash,” Ralphs said. “We optimize the chemical usage by using our AI to determine what (are) ideal concentrations for each stage of the wash, and then that helps us reduce waste and ensures that we have a consistent quality of soaps and detergents every single time that a car goes through our car wash.”
Jason Hill, a Henderson resident who lives near Scotty’s, said the car wash is built so it can accommodate larger vehicles, and he is grateful for the lack of a pulley system that can cause damage to a car’s alignment and other features.
The company is also more personable than others he has been to, Hill said.
“Jim, one of the engineers, he’s there every single time you come through,” he said. “He greets you with a smile. He walks you through the process.”
Though the Scotty’s Car Wash in Henderson may be the first, Ralphs said it is by no means the last. He hopes to grow the company and open more in neighboring suburbs and beyond, Ralphs said.
“It’s been a pretty good success for us,” he said. “We are growing every single month. (We’re) trying to make it a family-friendly, community-driven car wash, but we have plans to open a few more Scotty’s in the next few years, for sure.”
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