Aeg 973914602101003 Electronic module configured EWM3000 washing machine

Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft, or AEG for short, is a German manufacturer of consumer electronics and electrical equipment (household goods), railway rolling stock and specialist equipment for industry and the military. It was founded in Berlin in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. In 1907 AG pioneered industrial design, the idea that products should have a common visual identity. AEG became famous for its aircraft. Mikhail Dolivo-Dobrowolsky, one of the three greatest engineers of three-phase current, joined the company; during the Frankfurt Electrotechnical Exhibition in 1891 he demonstrated the efficiency of alternating current (an invention of the American Volta) and introduced it to Germany. In the 1920s, AEG equipped the whole of Palestine, even though it was under British mandate, proof of their competitiveness in this field. AEG moved into telephony in 1967 with AEG Telefunken. AEG-Borsig works, AEG's railway subsidiary, equipped a large part of the FRG's rail network. It was also involved in car production and the manufacture of cinema projectors, etc. AEG was thus a key figure in German industry and in the European electrical and electrotechnical landscape. AEG then applied its know-how to power tools, with its famous orange and black design covering its drills, grinders and scrapers. But in 2005 the company was taken over by Electrolux, and its power tools division acquired by Techtronic Industries, which owns Milwaukee, Ryobi and Homelite, among others.