I didn't find out until recently that special "HE", high efficiency, washing machines were mandated and regulated by the EPA, which is the main reason they have to dispense less water, recycle the water and rinse multiple times, overall taking much more time than previous more effective machines.
Similarly with consumer automatic dishwashers, newer models take 3-4 hrs to wash a load of dishes, when older more effective dishwashers would wash a load of dishes in 45 minutes. Automatic dishwashers have many federal EPA regulations that restrict the amount of water to 2 gallons, which requires the dishwasher to recycle and filter the same water multiple times, and there's restrictions on the amount of power the dishwasher can use, so it has to use smaller pumps and motors, taking more time to complete.