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] [this video]

Technology Connections recently had a video about the subject: "Why don't Americans use electric kettles?" ( [this 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. [this 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.

>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]: [this video]

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] - [this video]