Why don't Americans use electric kettles?

right now, there are thermal properties around materials like copper which will not work with induction that mean there are things that simply can't be done with them, and resistive electric is horribly non-responsive. As it happens, the latest installment of Technology Connections [1] does direct comparisons of the time required to boil a volume of water on various cooktop technologies. The winner was a cheap electric kettle, followed closely by an electric cooktop. A gas stove fared far worse. This surprised me, but there's the evidence. In retrospect, the efficiency of the gas stove is significantly impaired because it's not able to transfer as much of its energy into the pot - much of it escapes around the sides. To be fair, that's not quite the same thing as what you're saying: in car terms I'm comparing 0-60 acceleration times while you're comparing handling. But if I can stretch an analogy, a significant power advantage can cover a lot of sins in handling, see the famed Shelby Cobra for example. [1] [VIDEO]

Natural gas heating is very inefficient (e.g. versus electric kettle). There was recent Technology Connections video about that: [VIDEO]

Relatedly I found this video on electric kettles vs gas stove efficiency for heating water pretty illuminating too: [VIDEO] The summary is that a cheap electric kettle can boil water way faster and with far less wasted energy than a stove top kettle.

Technology Connections recently had a video about the subject: "Why don't Americans use electric kettles?" ( [VIDEO] ). His main conclusion: Americans have less use for kettles since they don't drink tea (as much). He also observes that electric kettles turn out to be faster and more efficient than other means of heating water for other purposes that are not obvious at first sight, as you also mention. Not all European electric kettles are faster than American ones BTW. Mine is 1200 W (I think) which is in the range of what American ones can deliver. There are more powerful models available too of course.

>If all that cooking-electricity comes from a natural gas peaker plant, then you've just doubled your usage of natural gas. I think the idea is to move away from that. Regardless, even using natural gas power generation electric induction boiling comes ahead. >Burning natural gas inside our homes is surprisingly efficient use of fossil fuels, far better than centralized electricity production. This isn't true. Technology Connections tested a typical electric range, an electric kettle, and a gas range, and calculated the Watt-hours needed to heat 1 liter of water using each. He found that a gas burner required 375.8Wh and a plug-in electric heater used 190.4 Wh. Induction is even more efficient. Even with transmission losses, burning the gas in a large, much more efficient central power plant and sending it in the form of electricity to the home where almost all of the energy gets transferred into the pot instead of the surrounding air as is the case with an open flame will result in much less gas being used to perform the same work. [VIDEO] All of this ignores the myriad of other improvements induction heating has over gas like not polluting the inside air, being impossible to leave on accidentally after cooking, and not being an explosion risk due to gas leaks.

A better way to save energy is to use an electric kettle to get the water up to boiling. This is about three times as energy-efficient as a gas hob. Combined with passive cooking it could save real money… Technology Connections on YouTube has a good video about how electric kettles are the superior way to boil water: [VIDEO]

> Takes about a minute. Electric kettles are certainly fast, but this feels like an exaggeration. Technology Connections[1] made a good video on this recently and even boiling roughly 1 quart of water (which is significantly less than you'd typically use for something like cooking pasta) required almost 5 minutes to come to boil in an electric kettle. [1] [VIDEO]

Instant Pot sold a model called the Max which went up to the full pressure of stovetop pressure cookers. It didn’t sell. The problem is that it took so much longer to reach the highest pressure. The main limitation? North American household 110V 15-amp circuits max out at 1650W (and typical appliances max out around 1350W to leave margin). If we had European 240V circuits we could have an Instant Pot designed for well over 2000W and it wouldn’t be an issue. The same story goes for electric kettles. Alec of Technology Connections [1] went into extensive detail about it! [1] [VIDEO]

>I guess you need a beefier cable/pins in the US, as you're drawing more current at a lower voltage. No, we just accept slow-as-piss kettles.[1] (Our plugs aren't great, either, it's pretty common for a spark to jump the gap of the leads while you're plugging it in.) High wattage appliances here have an effective max of like 1.8kW on a single-phase 120V outlet, it makes for pretty useless space heaters and kettles. You could probably beat our kettles with an induction cooktop just by virtue of the stove being able to use two phases. Truly it's a tragedy for those of us addicted to our hot beverages. [1]: [VIDEO]

Obligatory TechnologyConnections reference - [VIDEO] TLDR: in US it takes 2 minutes more :). Is that difference that noticeable IRL?

My understanding is that this choice is a balancing act between having good efficiency for long distances transmissions (230v) and having a lower peak load in the grid (110v) for desely populated areas. But I'm no expert in this matter. Where I live (Brazil) is commom to have both. In the big cities you will find 110v and outside that you are more likely to find 220v. And yes, it is a pain if you move from a 220v city to a 110v one. But besides that most people don't care about having 2 standards. For anyone interested there is a semi-relevant TechnologyConnections video[0] where he discusses the popularity of kettles as way to heat water in the US. [0] - [VIDEO]

Yes. North American dishwashers don’t heat the water during the prewash cycle because the duration in time is too short and the 120V electrical service can’t supply enough power to heat the water quickly during that time. European dishwashers use 240V (like everything else in the house) and so they can heat water much more quickly. This electrical difference is also reflected in the fact that electric kettles (for boiling water) aren’t nearly as popular in North America as they are in Europe. Technology Connections also did a video on this topic [1]. [1] [VIDEO]

Technology Connections has a youtube video titled "Why don't Americans use electric kettles?" in which he compares a few methods for bringing the same amount of water to a boil. The electric kettle was faster than a kettle on gas and electric stovetops. [VIDEO]

Technology connections has a good video on boiling water. If you have a good way to dump energy into the water, it will boil fast. [VIDEO]

Technology Connections did an excellent video on this: [VIDEO] tl;dw -- kettles in the U.S. only take about 4+ minutes to boil a liter of water. So when you say "now" you really mean it.

I don’t know is toaster are close to max power draw, but kettles certainly are. Most places with 240V regularly have 16A sockets, allowing a maximum draw of 3840W of power. That’s the limit. Cheap fast kettles will often draw 3000W and boil 250ml of water at room tempature in 30s. Kettles in the US are often limited to 15A and thus max 1800W (usually 1500W) and take twice as long (60s) Technology Connections has a great video on this: [VIDEO]

A 2022 Technology Connections video explores various ways to boil water: [VIDEO] And a 2020 video about different voltages in the US electrical systems: [LINK]