A conversational podcast/video segment (Chris Koerner with a guest) exploring small mobile auto services aimed at Tesla owners. Major points: mobile wheel/rim repair is already a busy microbusiness (example operator in St. Louis charging about $300 for ~1–1.5 hours); Teslas' popularity and sensitive wheels drive demand; opportunity to expand into tires and other mobile services; a concrete business idea is washing Teslas while owners wait at Supercharger stations (guest suggests washing for ~$25 during ~35 minute charging sessions) using minimal water methods (e.g., Optimum No Rinse). The speakers regard the Tesla owner base as enthusiastic and likely to adopt convenient mobile services.
Questions this video answers
About $300 for roughly 1 to 1.5 hours of work.
About $25 per wash.
Approximately 35 minutes.
Optimum No Rinse (ONR).
Chapters
Wheel repair, mobile wheel repair people are keeping their cars 12, 13, 15 years. Interest rates are liable to stay higher, long, for longer. New vehicle purchases are getting prohibitively expensive. People are going to try and hold on their car longer, keep it, keep it looking nicer, longer. There's a guy, I'm involved in the Tesla community as owner of two Teslas here in the Midwest, and there's a guy who does everybody's rims for teslas and the St. Louis metropolitan area. Same guy. And I've had him out to my house twice. He does it in my driveway. They look like brand new. When he's done, I'm like, bro, like, why aren't we like, let's roll this out, let's find some help. Like I'll fund you, let's go. Like, you go all over the area. You repair somebody's car, make it look like new, sitting in their parking spot at work or in their driveway at home. The work's done in an hour, two tops. What do you think? Is it scalable?
How busy is that guy? Is it.
He's non stop. This is all he does. And, and any, if he ever has slow time through just business, he gets organically through for work and he's like, it's just, it's just not worth it. So I'm, you know, he's just like resigned himself to just doing it himself.
Yeah, Are you still there? I think, are you?
Yeah, I'm here.
Okay, sorry, broke up for a minute. All right, so a couple other questions. What is his average ticket size and is he only doing Teslas?
Oh, no, he does anything. It's just the, honestly, I think just the Tesla group keeps him super busy here in the St. Louis area. But no, he'll do anything. Average ticket I think is probably about 300 bucks for about an hour, hour and a half worth of work.
Okay. Is that what you paid him? And he does a good job. Like you can't even tell.
It's unbelievable. If I sent you pictures, you'd never know. And I, and my rims are powder coated. And both the vehicles he's done for me, you'd never even know they were, they looked like they just rolled off the showroom floor.
Okay, all right, so I've got everything I need to know. I love this business and for so many reasons and I, I could be biased, so I'll just put it all out there. So first of all, my mother in law was in town two weeks ago and bless her heart, I, I have a Model S and I I let her drive it and she, she floored it over a pothole. And I have the upgraded wheels, like the erected wheels. And she popped a tire and I was very angry because I'm like, I, I read in all the message boards, like, these wheels are so sensitive. Like, so I know where every pothole is in town. I, I like, my car has never touched anything.
Yeah.
Like, it has never brushed up against anything. And so I was a little angry. And so she, she popped two of my tires and she bent the wheel. Discount tire. Told me it was be. Look bent. I couldn't tell it was bent, but they're like, you know, you're going to have uneven wear on this one rear tire. I still haven't fixed it. I don't know if he does vent wheels or just curb rash, but that's, that's not the point. My point is, like, I, I know there's demand for this, and it's not just because of my sample size of one. It sounds like there's insane demand in St. Louis. I, I love businesses that are built up around Tesla because I don't know what it is, but about that fan base, like, they are rabid.
Yep.
If I tweet about Tesla, it goes viral. Like, I, I don't know what it is. Like, I like my Tesla.
It's great.
Sure. But even I, I don't get it.
Right.
It's the most polarizing car brand out there and it's not even close. And so their growth is clearly insane. They're dropping prices, they're, they're, they're putting out a bunch more cars. I, I think one could crush it only doing Tesla starting that way at least Even naming the business like Bolt Wheel repair or something.
Yep.
And then as you expand and you do non Tesla vehicles, no one cares that it's called Bolt. Right. You just change the copy on, on your website to say you do all vehicles. But I'm surprised this isn't more of like a, more of a thing. Like pressure is a thing. Right. I feel like it's the secrets out. Yeah, maybe.
And I just don't know many other places in terms of ROI for car ownership where, you know, you, and especially when we're talking about Teslas, Chris, they all come off the factory with black rims now. You know, like you, you curb rash them like it's an eyesore immediately. And just the ROI you get for somebody to come to your house and do it on in your driveway or while you're parked at work just sitting there. Anyway, a couple hundred, two, three hundred bucks, and it looks like new again.
Well, and here's the thing. Mobile tire replacement and tire repair is also becoming more and more of a thing. There's franchises with vans growing like crazy. And so if you build a customer base over a couple years, then you can start. You can start doing tires as well, right? Why not?
I've always wondered around Tesla too. Speaking about, you know, how. How rabid Tesla fans are, why aren't there some young enterprising kids out there somewhere who are washing cars at Superchargers? Oh, like if I'm sitting there, I'm sitting there for 35 minutes. Why don't I have. Why don't I have two buckets and with a water tank in the back and. Hey, how long you charging? Oh, I'll be here another half an hour. Yeah, I'll wash your car for 25 bucks, Rick. How is that not a thing?
Seeing your dm because you're like a good tweet gold mine. Like, I'm. I'm getting so much content from this one segment. That should totally be a thing.
I don't know how it's not.
I don't.
I mean, eventually maybe somebody from the city or municipality, wherever the charger is, will come run you out of there, but for crying out loud, you could probably wash 10 cars a day at one supercharger before you get run out of anywhere. Go to.
Well, not just, not just that, but a lot of Tesla owners, myself included, are afraid to take it through an automatic wash. Yeah. So mine's always dirty for that reason. Yep.
And if you have, there are products, you know, like optimum no rinse. Onr. Most people call it optimum no rinse. You don't even need a. You don't have to rinse it. You just have a two bucket system, one with clean water, one with the dirty water. You don't even. You don't even have to have a power washer or, you know, a power wand or spray hose or anything that.
Could be an upsell at the Superchargers.
Exactly.
Man, that is a good idea. I'm all in on that idea.
All right.
Yep.
Well, you do. You validated everything I came to you for today.
