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I don't get it. Did the US never get electric stoves? They're over 100 years old tech at this point. It's weird that noone here mentions there are electric sto

• kibwen 2mo ago
  The US's infrastructure was built out with gas in mind. Having a gas stove is a status symbol, where having a resistive electric stove was for the longest time considered the domain of the poor, hence why people are so romantically attached to gas despite the fact that it's worse in basically every way than a modern induction stove.
  • stephbook 2mo ago
    That explains a lot, thank you. Still a weird quirk that the dirty gas is considered an elite symbol.
• rsynnott 2mo ago
  I think this is down to the American default of 120V power; 240V, while available, is more expensive to run there. A resistive/halogen stove running on 120V, assuming a non-absurdly-high-gauge cable, is going to be pretty terrible. In the US you can actually buy a 120V induction stove _with a built-in battery_ for this reason (eg https://copperhome.com/products/charlie https://copperhome.com/products/charlie). This is also why the US doesn't have proper electric kettles (a US electric kettle is sometimes as little as 1kW and certainly no more than 1.5kW; a European one is typically 3kW) and why US dishwashers and washing machines usually have a hot water inlet. Generally, nearly anything weird/suboptimal about US home appliances to European eyes is down to this issue.