Will New Automotive Clearcoat Technology Hurt the Auto Detailing Industry? Could be, I’ll explain

Now as an auto detailer you may have no idea who the Carlyle Group is, but I’m sure you have heard of DuPont as they are manufacturers of many detailing products. DuPont has also been a leader in automotive paints and coatings for several decades. What you are waxing today are probably coatings created by DuPont. Well, it turns out that the Carlyle Group is a powerfully connected player in the M&A arena.

With DuPont selling this currently struggling business unit, and with new owners, you can look forward to the next generation of automotive clearcoats, self-cleaning automotive finishes that may not need waxing or polymer protections from clear coat. There was an interesting article in the Wall Street Journal on August 31, 2012 titled; “Auto Paint Unit Sold to Carlyle Group for $4.9 Billion,” by Doug Cameron and Saabira Chaudhuri. What I’m saying is this is a big deal, potentially a game changer for the auto detailing industry.

Consider this; Modern clear coat cars have very good finishes and are very easy to wax with a polymer solvent product. In fact, they’re so easy to clean and shine that many of the major detailing companies sell soaps that also contain wax, so you can do it all in one step. Also consider the Dry Wash products out there these days. Now, what if the future ends with these cars cleaning themselves, then they don’t need waxing and they need even less preventative maintenance.

It’s going to be very difficult for a mobile detailer, or someone who operates a detail shop on a fixed site, to convince a high-end car owner that they need a special protective coating or wax on a car that advertises never need none of that. Do you see my point? In the future, I’m sure there will be car manufacturers announcing that the car will never need waxing. A large part of auto detailing involves putting on a coat of wax, and that could be perhaps half the most expensive services an auto detailer might charge. In other words, this could cut the amount of money they earn on each because they itemize in half.

Some might say this will never happen, but I’ve seen PPG and other companies create self-cleaning bacterial coatings and self-cleaning glass. These same types of technologies will soon be used in cars, self-cleaning cars, which if Google has anything to say about it, will also drive themselves, perhaps their competition, which is a whole other matter. Please consider all this and think about it, because the future is fast approaching.