We are trying to estimate the demand for a system that could autonomously (no humans on site) surface clean parking lots and parking garages. The target customer for this system is pressure washing companies. We are wondering whether pressure washing companies actually get parking lot and parking garage jobs frequently enough to justify investment into an automated solution. Do any of you guys spend the majority of your time doing these types of jobs, or are they are just done in addition to your regular work? On average, how many parking lot and parking garage jobs do you work/does your company receive per month?
What do you mean by automated? What part would be automated?
Second, your target market should be municipalities and garage owners.
Lucid technologies I believe has a roomba style surface cleaner
It is a wheeled robot with a surface cleaner that is able to autonomously drive around and surface clean a large area like a parking lot or parking garage. Selling to property owners is one idea, but if they normally only have their lot/garage cleaned annually the ROI time might be too high for them.
Yes. They recently released their Lavo Bot, but frankly, it sucks. It is not autonomous, so even though it costs 14k (and doesn’t include its own pressure washing unit) you still need someone to stand there and remote control it. Not to mention it doesn’t have a reclaim system.
Even with full automation (which is never truly fully automated), as someone running a pressure washing business, I would still have someone on site during the cleaning for when things go wrong, which they will… plus someone would need to drop off/pick up and set up the machine anyways. I own a Roomba, the nearby campuses use robots for food delivery, and many businesses use automated lawnmowers. From my experience watching all of these, the technology just isn’t there yet, and the end results aren’t something I would want to put my businesses name on.
As mentioned earlier, I also don’t believe we fall within your target market. However, if I owned a parking lot and the cost of owning, operating, and maintaining one of these devices turned out to be significantly cheaper than hiring a company for periodic cleanings, then it might be a smart investment.
You got a pic of this bad boy?
I’m really curious to see what it’ll look like as well… it’s going to have to be pretty huge in order to fit everything needed to clean a parking lot and be fully automated. I’m thinking something at least the size of a zamboni.
