考研英语阅读理解外刊原文经济学人

Machines are once again doing the car-washing in Britain
一切尽在泡沫之中
Blame (or credit) Brexit and covid
在英国，洗车机又开始流行起来了
What warm weather is to ice-cream vans and popcorn is to dentists, Saharan dust storms are to car washes. A big dust cloud like the one that reached Britain on March 16th boosts revenues by about a quarter, according to Kevin Pay of Wilcomatic, which runs about 800 automatic car washes in Britain. “You love to see it,” he says, as a dusty red Ford Ka joins the queue in Hove in East Sussex, on the south coast.
温暖的天气之于冰淇淋车以及爆米花之于牙医就好比撒哈拉沙漠的沙尘暴之于洗车店。

据威尔科马蒂公司（该公司在英国经营着大约800家自动洗车店）的凯文·佩称，像3月16日到达英国的那种巨大的尘埃云使洗车店的收入增加了约四分之一。

当一辆尘土飞扬的红色福特汽车加入到南海岸东苏塞克斯郡霍夫区一家洗车店的排队行列时，他说：“我很乐意看到这种情形。

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Until recently Britain’s drivers usually took their dirty motors to car parks and disused petrol stations, where eastern European immigrants had at them with sponges. In 2018 a parliamentary committee was informed that Britain had 10,000-20,000 hand car washes, compared with 2,000 automatic “rollover” machines and about 4,000 do-it-yourself jet washes.
直到最近，英国的司机们还经常把脏兮兮的汽车开到停车场和废弃的加油站，东欧移民在那里用海绵为他们擦洗汽车。

2018年，一个议会委员会获悉，英国有1万至2万家手工洗车店、2000家自动“滚转”洗车店以及大约4000家DIY喷射式洗车店。

Hand car washes were more convenient—drivers simply handed money through the window rather than traipsing into a petrol station to buy a six-digit code—and often cheaper than machines. The industry was a rare example of de-automation.
手动洗车更方便——司机只需摇下车窗递出钱就可以了，而不用走到加油站去拿一个6位数的验证码——而且通常比机器更便宜。

洗车业是一个罕见的去自动化的例子。

It is now re-automating. Mr Pay says that Wilcomatic’s car-washing revenues in 2021 were 15% higher than in 2019, before covid-19 arrived. “It’s starting to turn,” agrees Chris Scott of Istobal, another car-washing firm, who says that sales of the chemicals used by machines are higher than they were before the pandemic.
如今它正在重新走向自动化。

佩表示，威尔科马蒂公司2021年的洗车收入比2019年(新冠肺炎疫情爆发之前)高出了15%。

“情况有所好转了，”另一家洗车公司伊斯托巴尔公司的克里斯·斯科特表示同意。

他说，如今洗车机所用洗车液的销量比疫情爆发前要高。

At Parkfoot Garage in Kent, David Charman says his four jet washes have been “absolutely flat out” since the dust storm. He has acquired another car-wash site and is seeking a third.
肯特郡帕克福特汽车修理厂的大卫·查曼表示，自沙尘暴袭来之后，他店里的四台喷射式洗车机“就没停下来过”。

他已经收购了另一家洗车店，并且正在寻找第三家。

Automatic car washes and jet washes have improved, with contactless payment, superior brushes and theatrical foam. But the main reason for their popularity is that hand car washes are disappearing.
随着非接触式支付技术、高级刷子和绵密泡沫的出现，自动洗车机和喷射式洗车机得到了改进。

但它们广受欢迎的主要原因是，人工洗车正在逐渐消失。

The informal ones can be lousy employers: in 2016 a study of Leicester by two academics, Ian Clark and Trevor Colling, found that many paid less than the legal minimum wage. Car washing is a typical first job for an unskilled immigrant. And Brexit means that Britain has fewer newly arrived unskilled immigrants these days.
偶尔碰到的手工洗车店可能是并不专业的店主亲自在洗：2016年，伊恩·克拉克和特雷弗·科林两位学者对莱斯特进行的一项研究发现，许多人的工资低于法定最低工资。

洗车通常是非技术移民的第一份工作。

而随着英国脱欧，如今该国新来的非技术移民越来越少了。

Covid-19 further tilted the market towards machines. The government shut down hand car washes for longer than automated ones, on the ground that they posed a higher infection risk. The pandemic also discouraged drivers (and everyone else) from paying with cash. That hurt informal car washes, which love cash in part because it allows them to dodge tax.
新冠肺炎疫情进一步使市场向洗车机倾斜。

政府封闭人工洗车店的时间比自动洗车店更长，因为它们具有更高的感染风险。

疫情也使司机（和其他人）不愿用现金支付。

这对一些不正规的洗车店造成了打击，这些洗车店更喜欢收现金，部分原因在于这样可以逃税。

Alexander Russell of the Car Wash Association, a trade group, says that the industry has gone in a circle. Some petrol stations are now putting automatic car-washing machines into bays that were originally built for them, but were then occupied by hand car washes. Car washing has been in a lather, but it is emerging cleaner.
行业组织洗车协会的亚历山大·拉塞尔表示，洗车行业已经陷入了一种循环。

一些加油站如今正在把自动洗车机安装在原本为自动洗车而建但后来被手工洗车所占用的隔间里。

洗车行业的泡沫越来越大，但也逐渐变得合规。

重难点词汇：
traipse [treɪps] v. 疲惫地走；闲荡；游荡
flat out 全力以赴；竭尽全力
lousy [ˈlaʊzi] adj. 糟糕的；令人作呕的；卑鄙的。