Hotpoint
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| Private subsidiary | |
| Industry | Home appliances |
| Founded | 1911 in Ontario, California, United States |
| Founder | Earl Richardson |
| Headquarters | Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom |
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Area served
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Europe |
| Products | Washing machines, Dishwashers, Refrigerators, Freezers, Cookers, Tumble dryers |
| Parent | Haier, Whirlpool Corporation |
| Website | www |
The Hotpoint Electric Heating Company (generally known simply as Hotpoint) is an American and European brand of domestic appliances. Ownership of the brand is split between the American Whirlpool, which has European rights, and Haier which has North American rights.
Hotpoint was founded in 1911. The name of the company comes from the hot point of the revolutionary first electric iron of 1905, invented by the American (Wisconsin) Earl Richardson (1871–1934) having formed his Pacific Electric Heating Company in Ontario, California, in 1906. It was known as the Hotpoint iron, with its hottest point at the front and not the center. In 1912 the company began making electric irons, and electric cookers in 1919 in the USA. Earl Richardson also invented the first iron that switched off automatically when a maximum temperature was reached.
It is claimed to have developed one of the earliest electric toasters in 1908, known as the El Tosto, and later, under GE, the Hotpoint brand name became one of the most popular brands of toaster in the USA in the 1920s and 1930s. Richardson founded his own settlement, Adelanto, California, in 1915.
In 1918, the company, known as the Hotpoint Electric Heating Company from 1912, merged with the Heating Device Section of General Electric, becoming the Edison Electric Appliance Company, and later, just a division of GE in 1927, when it bought the factory and entire company. It became known as the Edison General Electric Company in 1931. Most Hotpoint production moved to GE's mammoth Appliance Park manufacturing complex in Louisville, KY in the early 1950's. To this day, many Hotpoint appliances are made at Louisville, the largest appliance plant in the world.
In 2014, Electrolux agreed to buy General Electric's household appliances business including the Hotpoint brand in North America for £2bn ($3.3bn). The deal was expected to close in 2015. Due to blockage by U.S. regulators, the Electrolux deal was terminated, and GE subsequently sold its appliance division to Haier of China, to close in 2016.
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Wikipedia