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Nov. 29—Lincoln Electric premiered its new Lincoln Electric Velion DC Fast Chargers Nov. 29 at its main manufacturing plant located at 22801 St Clair Ave.
Industry experts, politicians, and the media all showed up to witness what speakers said will be history in the making.
Lincoln Electric, one of the largest employers in Euclid and the Greater Cleveland area, announced that it innovated and expanded its main manufacturing plant to start production on a new electric vehicle charger.
Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb said at the Nov. 29 news conference that Lincoln Electric producing the charging stations is a significant sign of local investment, and that having a greater distribution of stations will benefit the community as a whole.
"I wanted to be here at this historic day because today's ribbon cutting shows that Cleveland and Ohio are going to fuel America's next economic revolution," Bibb said. "We have fueled America's first industrial revolution with John D. Rockefeller and steel and iron ore production and because of our president's investments through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill we are now making things in America again."
The new DC fast chargers, dubbed the Velion DC Fast Charger, are designed according to Lincoln Electric to exceed standards put in by the Biden Administration that require at least 75% of the content of each charger be made domestically and require that chargers include ports that are able to connect to vehicles that are not manufactured by the same manufacture.
This is in direct competition to Tesla, Inc. which manufactures the Tesla Supercharger which according to Feb. 15 White House Press release will be making 7,500 chargers available to non-Tesla EV's by the end of 2024.
According to officials at the news conference, the new charger will be the first one completely made and designed in the United States. Lincoln Electric expanded its chip division, which completes assembly on its worldwide supply of mounted circuit boards and other chip-based components in order to produce their chargers in house.
During a tour of the expanded facility, Lincoln Electric officials said that previously 8 million parts were placed by hand. Now up to 70 percent of that process is done via robotic assembly and other production improvements.
According to a fact sheet provided by Lincoln Electric, the charging stations will be able to handle the highs of Ohio summer and the chills of its winter as the charging stations are designed to work anywhere between -35 C and 50 C degrees with a max output power of 150KW.