American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
American Towing and Recovery Institute onThe Go
Embracing Change with EV Clever
Discover how the revolutionary EV Clever app is transforming the towing and recovery industry in our latest episode! Celebrate with us as we reach an incredible milestone of 15,000 subscribers and explore the enthusiastic feedback from our listeners at the Chattanooga Tow Show. Dive into the world of towing innovations with insights from my co-host, the seasoned trainer Wes Wilburn, as we discuss the captivating mix of new technologies and nostalgic elements, like the beloved vintage Holmes brochures, that are catching the industry's eye. We also extend our heartfelt thanks to Chuck Camp, our dedicated producer, for his behind-the-scenes efforts.
Kim and April share their thoughts on the new and improved EV Clever App, live from the Tennessee Tow Show in Chattanooga.
Get an exclusive look at how the EV Clever app is a game-changer for everyone from towing professionals to emergency responders. Simplifying access to crucial vehicle and towing information, this app enhances safety and efficiency on the road with Apple and Google approvals and its distinctive Quick Links feature. Learn about its cost-effective benefits and why it’s a smart choice for those in the industry, offering an incredible deal for just $1.60 a month on an annual plan. Join us for more insights in our upcoming episodes as we continue to deliver valuable discussions and updates from the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
Welcome one and all to the American Towing Recovery Institute podcast.
Speaker 1:Remember this is your podcast to promote safety, education, positive public relations and networking within the professional and business-minded towing and recovery industry. I'm your co-host, dj Harrington, better known as the Tow Doctor, and my other host is Wes Wilburn, over 40-year towing industry veteran, the founder of American Towing Recovery Institute of Fayetteville, north Carolina. He has produced and conducted training and certification programs for leading towing companies, equipment distributors, towing associations, dot, fire departments, rescue, as well as military installations across the United States. Wes has been published over 100 times in major towing publications published over 100 times in major towing publications. Wes has developed many courses, including the most recent awareness-level course for all responders that specialize in electric vehicles as well as hybrid, natural gas and hydrogen vehicles. Wes has provided insight as the main speaker for over 30 years at more than 900 training classes and has been recognized as one of America's greatest towing trainers. He is well known for his straightforward but down-to-earth teaching style. No-transcript. Without further ado, here's my dear friend and a great guy for our industry, wes Wilber.
Speaker 3:Hi, dj. Well, as always, you're way too kind with your words. I certainly appreciate it. I want to thank all our listeners 15,000 and growing. Those are 15,000 subscribers too, dj. I hear a lot of people telling numbers around, different numbers in the industry about a lot of different things. Our numbers are verifiable, aren't they?
Speaker 1:Yes, now it's verifiable through Spotify. And I want to tell you something Do you remember the day you broke 10,000? We got a beautiful telegram, how wonderful it is. You know, because there's anyone who goes over. 10,000 is a very small number in the podcast business and Chuck Camp, our producer, could tell you more of that. But I'm going to tell you. Wes in Chattanooga, where the beginning of this program is all about the Chattanooga Toe Show, two people came over to me and said Doc, we love you, and Wes on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm amazed too, at classes and stuff, how many people reference the podcast. A lot more people, you know well it's 15,000 subscribers. So I was about to say I won't people listen to anything, but it's. You know that number speaks for itself. So we're very, very proud of that. The reach itself is over 20,000. So for us to be that close with podcast, you know that that's over the different social media. You know social media mediums that we're over, I guess, over 25,000. I should have numbers when I talk about this stuff, but anyway, we do have the 15,000 subscribers. That's a rock solid number that will get through and writing to anybody that wants to discuss numbers.
Speaker 3:We're thankful for the faithful listeners that listen. Every week we're trying to have something interesting to listen to and I think we hit the mark with this week's program. I'm excited about the information that's going to be shared about the new EV Clever app that's available now on Apple and Google. Kim will talk more in April and talk more about that in a minute. But it's exciting, dj, to be involved with something like this and the team is just on this project, grabbing the ball and running with it. It's really at a level I never would have dreamed it could be at this quickly, so we're super excited here.
Speaker 1:Well, you deserve to be Wes At the Chattanooga show. I'm going to tell all our listeners. Your booth was packed and people were coming by all wanting to learn about the new EP. It's new and improved, it's easier to get on, it's easier to rectify and correct everything and you're sitting in your truck. Within seconds you get all the information pertaining to that vehicle. It's phenomenal EV clever app, new and improved and it's really great. And the people, as they can tell from the podcast, you and I are doing this separately. Then we're going to go into it live and it's funny how you got some of your own customers, some of your patrons. They were buying stuff from the booth. We had to deal with them. April had to get up and run their credit card and come back to the podcast. It was an exciting time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the team did a great job with the booth this weekend. I want to thank all. There's so many folks out there that are super loyal to us and come by the booth and support us. We really appreciate that.
Speaker 3:And yeah, I heard the app was a big hit. I'm happy to see the industry receiving it so well. Another thing that was a big hit was some of the homes brochures. I came across a whole slew of factory brochures from a dealership that closed down years ago, taking the different homes brochures homes 750's, homes 8801, 440's, etc. And framed and matted them so you can have a little nostalgia on your wall. I just thought it was humorous how that item 40s et cetera, and framed and matted them so you can have a little nostalgia on your wall. I just thought it was humorous how that item did very, very well at the booth. So did the app. You know the new meets the old, so to speak, because these are original brochures from the 1960s and the 1970s and 80s et cetera.
Speaker 1:I'm with you, friend.
Speaker 3:Yeah well, it's just interesting sometimes how the old stuff has a lot of interest as well as the new stuff. So we do have a new podcast today. We also got some new exciting things coming up we'll talk about on the next podcast. Some big things are happening with the institute and we'll be sharing that with you, but today we have Kim and April going to talk about the live from the show. We're going to talk about the app and some other current events as well. Dj.
Speaker 1:Correct, so we can take a fast break, and then, when we come back, wes, you'll hear the voices of DJ Harrington, april and Kim talking right from the chatty music totem.
Speaker 3:Yep, absolutely, thanks for listening and we'll be right back.
Speaker 4:The EV Clever app is an app created for all responders and emergency service personnel. The EV Clever app is the only app containing easy-to-navigate quick links to access manufacturer-suggested instructions for emergency situations dealing with electric and alternative fuel vehicles while on the side of the road.
Speaker 5:That includes hybrid, fully electric fuel cell, compressed natural gas and hydrogen buses and heavy trucks.
Speaker 4:These quick links are a convenient way to access information quickly.
Speaker 5:To date, we have a total of 789 passenger vehicles, over 181 heavy-duty trucks, and adding more every day, thanks to our research team. You can go to evclevercom and use the code PODCAST2024, get a free 30-day trial and then after that you get 20% off.
Speaker 2:Information in this podcast is made possible by generous sponsorship from Henry's Wrecker, serving the community with quality towing and recovery for over 40 years. Henryswreckercom.
Speaker 6:Welcome back listeners. Of course you know you're listening to the American Towing and Recovery Institute podcast. This is a special edition. Coming from Chattanooga, tennessee, at the Tennessee Tow Show, we just finished doing the memorial for all the fallen named on the wall. This year, 31 people went on the wall, so it's a moment of silence that we had earlier. We're right now in the booth with April and Kim with this exciting news that just got released with Apple and Google Play. So, kim, how about I say hi? First of all? I'll say hi to you. How are you? Hi, dj, I'm great. Great. April, how are you doing? I?
Speaker 5:am fantastic because I'm with the great DJ Harrington.
Speaker 6:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to tell all our listeners. Let me just tell you the booth is filled with people and April gets up, walks over, waits on them, gets their credit card, comes back and then sits back down again. So sit down.
Speaker 5:I'm sitting.
Speaker 6:So we're doing the podcast Now. Tell our listeners the exciting news about Apple and Google. How did that process happen?
Speaker 7:Well, dj, we've worked hard on going from the web-based app that we had to now we are on Apple and Google Play stores, so it's a lot easier and a lot more functional, and so all you do is go right on there. If you have a iPhone, you'll go to the Apple store or a Google or Android the Google Play store and you'll type in EV Clever. It don't have to have any kind of special marks in it, just EV Clever and you'll find it downloaded for 30 days free, regardless if you've had it before, and then after 30 days, if you decide you want it. I'm sure you will, because it's much improved and we are very proud of it. So you will start your 30 days and they ask you first. It's not anything you have to remember. So $2.99 for the first month, or you can do it for a full year for $19.99, which is a big discount of about it comes to about $1.66 a month, gotcha.
Speaker 6:So they did annually. Now, april, what I was going to ask you? When you get into this now they get a test drive, so to speak, for 30 days. So how has that affected the business itself?
Speaker 5:Right now it's the beginning stages of it, so it's a slow thing. I'm hoping, being here on the show floor with this relaunch that we're doing with it, that it picks back up and we're going to do a lot more Facebook Lives with it, showcasing how easy it is to use, because once people see it, kim has her iPad out, she shows them. You go from. Let's just say it's a Lexus, or if it's a Tesla, or if it's a Mercedes Benz, anything that's EV.
Speaker 5:Once they see that you just touch, touch, touch and you can pull up the tow hookups. It sells itself. At that point, when they see it, they're downloading Before we can even say look at the next car, they're downloading that app. It's that simple and it's that easy to use and they give you the difference between everything. On this side of the road, you have to go through Google to search to find this information. Go through the ads when you're on this side of the road, or if you go to our app and just pull it up and it's at your fingertips within 15 or 20 seconds. Right, it can be the difference of anything. These 31 people. They're on the difference of anything these 31 people that are on the wall.
Speaker 5:the longer you're on the side of that road, the longer you're looking at your phone to do something, because at that point you're not paying attention as much as you should be, you're not as aware as you should be. If you can make a 30-second lookup instead of a three-minute lookup, it can be the difference between everything night and day night, night and day, yeah, or day and night, whichever you know which, whichever time these things happen, because it's yeah it happened at two o'clock in the afternoon.
Speaker 5:These guys get hit on the side of the road at two o'clock in the morning too. So it's, it can be the difference. I'm not saying it's a life-saving, I'm not saying that this is a life-saving thing, but there's so many near misses that we never record. Near misses are never recorded because it was a miss.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I know that in the past. Now, kim, when we talked about this before, there's pages and pages and pages. If you printed a manual. How many pages if you printed a manual? How many pages if you printed a manual?
Speaker 7:Well, right now we have right at 800 passenger vehicles, not to include trucks or buses. So with just those alone, on average each make and model has about 20 to 30 pages. So you do the math, dj.
Speaker 6:Oh, my Forget it.
Speaker 7:Yeah, that's a lot I went to night school.
Speaker 5:This would be hard for me, and one of the reasons why there are so many pages is because we have towing, which is critical for our industry. There's things for fire, there's things for recyclers, because they're getting these.
Speaker 6:Your sign says up there created for all responders. So you have the fire department, the police department, the ambulance service.
Speaker 5:Auto repair shops.
Speaker 6:Auto repair shops, recyclers.
Speaker 5:Recyclers.
Speaker 6:That are out there and this is something that they should be looking into. So for all of us, you know this is an important thing. I know here at the show a lot of people are talking about it and I want you guys to know the listeners of the podcast. We've been sitting here while April has been processing one customer after another I know, for the last 25 minutes, right and Kim's saying don't worry, dj, we're going to do this podcast in a minute, but it's been a good show for you.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it has been. It has been. It's always better when Wes is here, but we still manage it without him. But yeah, it's been a very good show. It's been great to be here and see a lot of old friends too.
Speaker 6:You got it.
Speaker 5:And sometimes it's that once a year thing.
Speaker 6:You don't see them any other time of the year. All right, we're going to take a fast break and when we come back we'll learn more about what's happening here at the Tennessee.
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Speaker 6:All right, welcome back listeners. As you all know, we're in the Tennessee show. This is a special podcast for the American Tone Recovery Institute. It's been a good one. This is an all electric vehicle app with quick links and it's very vital that all of our listeners know. It is now approved by Apple and Google and it makes it so much simpler. Did I say it right, you?
Speaker 7:did Quick Links. From our acknowledgement up to date, we are the only EV app that has Quick Links. We may have the same information as other EV apps, but we made it so you click on specific things that are of interest to responders. It just makes it quicker. Specific things that are interest to responders so it just makes it quicker.
Speaker 6:Yes, and that's a customer who just came by who wants to be on the podcast. That'll cost you five dollars.
Speaker 7:Okay, thank you.
Speaker 5:Thank you, karen, thank you thank you, karen, for your order. Yeah nice lady karen's a very nice lady she's in. She's in ge Georgia. She's a good friend of mine. She hugs me up when she sees me.
Speaker 6:She's a character. She loves me she loves Wes. She's a lovely lady, the show has been really packed. It's been good. I walked around your booth has more activity in your booth because you have so many things here. Does the Institute offer this on the website on a regular basis?
Speaker 5:Yes, institute offer this on the website on a regular basis. Yes, we offer the app on the web. Almost everything that we do you can find to some extent on on our website. Um, the app is, the information is there. As far as going to apple and google, as well as the classes that we have lined up, you can go in there and find out more information about the different types of classes we have, as well as signing up for classes. So, on our website, as well as our towing and equipment direct website, that you can go buy product from equipment for your tow trucks. So we definitely have our toe in the water, so to speak, in different areas.
Speaker 6:Well, some of the flyers that are here. April tell us a little bit about some of the flyers that are here. April tell us a little bit about some of the flyers that are here.
Speaker 5:So the flyers that we have here are promoting our class, our fall lineup, which is booked up, and then we've started our spring lineup. I think that we still have one or two openings in the spring. We have pretty much got that filled up too. But we are going to Woffco towing October the 18th, that's for the EV class, for a three-hour class, and then Saturday, sunday, 19th and 20th for a heavy-duty with rotator class, and then a couple weeks later we're going to be in Indiana, still at Thomas, 24-hour towing in Elkhart, indiana. We have a two-day light-medium-duty class in that city. So you know, heavy-duty with rotator light and heavy-duty with that one. We're in Sumter, south Carolina, november the 16th and 17th for a two-day fire-tower class and that's with the great Ron Moore who will instruct this class with Wes. Wes is the towing expert.
Speaker 2:Ron is the fire expert.
Speaker 5:Wes does not try to say that he's anything that he's not, so we have people for that spot.
Speaker 6:That's an expert in it as an expert and everybody in the fire industry knows Ron Moore. They know him, everybody he's written for their magazine almost 40 years Very well known, very, very well known.
Speaker 5:And then in the spring, what we have is a class in Lake Charles, louisiana, which is digging himself out of a flood right now Right, because of the hurricanes they always get it. But we're doing a one-day light duty class, one day heavy duty on January the 25th, and then a one day light duty on January the 26th, as well as the Friday before that. We're doing that EV class that we're giving back to the industry, as well as fire and tower. Anybody can come to that class.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and they actually come free and if people don't understand that, friday night class and in the past there's been a lot of cross-training going on.
Speaker 6:So fire departments come and other emergency people come and they learn how they could work with the tow and with that, who knows what other information comes between now and in that time.
Speaker 5:Well, well, add that to our curriculum for that right. You know that's what people are coming to these classes for is what is the latest thing? And with the EVs, there's so much known and there's so much unknown with it. And then this last one here that I'm going to talk about is Opelika, alabama. We're doing that with CP Wrecker in conjunction with Griffin Griffin.
Speaker 6:Right.
Speaker 5:That is March the 7th for the EV class and then Saturday and Sunday for the heavy-duty towing and recovery. That's March 8th and March 9th. So that's our fall lineup and the beginning of our spring lineup.
Speaker 6:Gotcha. Well, I want to tell all of our listeners I wish you were here at the show. The show has been packed. It's been good for you. You've got all kinds of characters here young people too, which is wonderful here, young people, too, which is wonderful. Before we end this segment of the podcast, what is the if I had gave you something, kim, and said what's something you'd like to share with our listeners? Now here you've got to remember, you're over 16,000 listeners. You have boomed the listenership through social media, so are you going to do the same thing with this EV Clever app? Are you going to push it out social media-wise also?
Speaker 7:Yes, yes. I think it's important that we not only show you or say here it is, download this, but what it looks like. People are like I don't know what it looks like, I don't want to jump in. There's 100 different apps. I can get. What makes this one unique? So we're going to show some little excerpts you know little videos and post them on our you know social media.
Speaker 5:So there's going to be a place where we develop different, like articles and information about the cars and any great things that are coming along in that industry, and maybe not great things too, that the tower or the fire fighter needs to know about too.
Speaker 6:Yeah, because listening to the two of you, kim and April, it just seems like you've made it simpler than in the past and updating. So as you go along, then you come along and you have E-V-C-L-E-V-E-R and they can go on Apple or Google and register right there. So it's really you made it Right. It's like the simplest process.
Speaker 5:It's so easy that I can do it.
Speaker 6:Well, April, there you go. Now, if you can do it, I can do it Exactly. It feels like a Rocky movie. If you could do it, I could do it. Exactly. It feels like a Rocky movie. If Rocky could do it, you could do it we all could do it.
Speaker 5:That's right, that's right.
Speaker 6:And it's that type of a thing. So, as we're going to end this segment, what's one thing you'd like to tell all our listeners?
Speaker 7:Well, get the app. If you don't want it, call us and we'll tell you why you need it. No, just kidding, um, everyone needs it. And then, and also, something we didn't have on our other edition was you can click ev charger and it'll pull your location up if you need a charger, um, so it's not just for tollers.
Speaker 6:It's low enough.
Speaker 7:So you can find that we'll have blogs and everything coming up. You articles stuff that's useful for you know, the EB customer or the toer or responders, rather.
Speaker 6:Well, I want to tell everybody we're at the Tennessee Tow Show, so you hear a lot of noise in the background, but the American Towing Institute that you guys have created to me it's like can I? It's a constant, never-ending improvement. And you've improved this method, this app, and now you want to share it with all your listeners. So it's the new, proved edition. So if they tried it once before, they need to try it now.
Speaker 5:And it's a 30-day free?
Speaker 6:Yeah, and for 30 days free trial, a free test drive. This will give you an opportunity and I'm going to tell all our listeners, you know, make a smart choice and go with EV Clever and try it out. And you can't. You know, it doesn't cost you a thing. It doesn't cost you nothing to try it and once you try it, just like Kim says, you'll buy it, you'll love it and you'd want to be part of it. And for $1.60 a month, if you paid it annually, that's a super deal. It is All right, kim, anything before we end this segment.
Speaker 5:I just want to thank you and Chuck. Chuck is the unsung hero here.
Speaker 6:Chuck Camp, the producer of the program. He won't even say anything.
Speaker 5:He just gave me a thumbs up for sitting here with us and doing this and putting up with the circus that we've got going on here. So I appreciate you guys in that.
Speaker 6:All right. So with that in mind, we'll see you next time on the American Tone Recovery Institute podcast, and we'll see you then.