Last updated: August 2026
One of the questions we hear most at Clearlift is: ‘What makes EP Equipment different from other brands at a similar price point?’ It’s a fair question, and the honest answer starts with how EP Equipment makes its machines.
EP’s Anji manufacturing campus in China is one of the most automated and advanced forklift production facilities in the world. Here’s what that means in practice — and why it matters for a business in Ireland or Northern Ireland choosing a forklift fleet.
Scale That Supports Quality
EP Equipment produces over 300,000 units per year at the Anji facility. That scale allows investment in automated production processes that smaller manufacturers simply cannot justify.
What does that mean for a Clearlift customer? It means every machine that comes out of the factory has been built on the same automated lines, to the same tolerances, checked by the same quality processes, regardless of whether it’s unit 1 or unit 300,000 of that year.
The Lithium Battery Plant: Built In-House
Most forklift manufacturers buy their lithium batteries from third-party suppliers. EP Equipment makes its own, at a dedicated lithium battery manufacturing facility within the Anji campus with a 3.5GWh annual production capacity.
This matters for three reasons:
- Quality control: EP controls the entire battery — chemistry, cell selection, assembly, and testing — rather than relying on external suppliers to hit their specification
- Battery Management System (BMS): EP’s proprietary BMS monitors and protects every cell. This is why their batteries are maintenance-free and rated for up to 4,000 charge cycles
- Compatibility: Because the battery and the truck are engineered together, you avoid the integration problems that can occur when third-party batteries are bolted onto machine designs that weren’t built around them
Learn more about lithium-ion technology
Automated Welding: Consistency You Can’t Get by Hand
EP’s welding shop operates fully automated welding lines capable of producing 35 machine frames per shift while requiring 75% less manual intervention than conventional methods. Automated welding produces consistent, repeatable welds that’s free from the variability that comes with manual welding and the fatigue that affects human welders over a long shift.
For a fleet operator in Ireland or Northern Ireland, this translates directly into structural reliability therefore frames that perform consistently across years of heavy use rather than hiding variation behind a coat of paint.
Digital Autonomous System (DAS) — Making Forklifts in the Factory Using Forklifts
EP’s factory uses its own automation technology — fleets of X-Mover autonomous handling robots — to move components between production stages. The DAS system manages inventory, storage locations, and transport scheduling across the entire campus.
There’s a neat logic to this: EP uses the same principles behind its AMR product range to run its own production. When a manufacturer trusts its own automation technology enough to build its factory around it, that’s a reasonable signal about confidence in the product.
Explore EP’s automation range.
What This Means for Irish and Northern Irish Businesses
The practical outcome of EP’s manufacturing approach is this: when you take delivery of a Clearlift-supplied EP Equipment machine, you’re getting a product that’s been built to engineered specifications on automated production lines, with its own battery technology designed for the machine it’s fitted to.
That’s backed by our Parts and Aftersales team in Navan and Portadown that’s covering all of Ireland and Northern Ireland for servicing, parts, and support. EP’s production scale also means parts availability is consistent, which matters if something needs replacing three years into a fleet’s life.
Come See the Machines for Yourself
Quality on paper means little until you’ve put a machine through its paces. At our demo centre in Navan, Co. Meath, you can operate the EP Equipment range in a real working environment — run them on your typical loads, test the lithium charging cycle, and speak to our team about the specifics of your operation.
Book a free demo visit: Contact Us
Ireland: 01 5267 411 | Northern Ireland: 028 3833 7038
