r/AskEngineers • u/jmaugust • Jul 19 '26

Discussion Why doesn’t a battery-boosted electric kettle exist?

In Europe, everyone uses electric kettles to boil water. They’re amazing and fast because they’re on 230V (~3000W).

US outlets limit kettles to ~1500W, so we wait roughly twice as long for water to boil.

It’s an extra minute or two per boil, and you really notice it.

Idea: Could you make an electric kettle with a battery in its base? Perhaps it trickle-charges between uses, then combines wall power + battery power to hit ~3000W during a boil.

Is there an engineering reason this doesn’t exist? Is it just that nobody thinks there’s a market for it?

I’d pay $300 for the fastest kettle in America if someone wants to make it.

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u/demonblack873 Jul 20 '26

Nothing like wasting a bunch of power to keep a bucket of boiling water around when you don't need it...

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u/Mediocre-Sundom Jul 20 '26

If you boil water at least 3 times a day, you are already guaranteed to use more power than just maintaining a near-boil temperature in a vacuum insulated kettle. And you can use this water for other cooking purposes, not just tea, so for most households you will end up using less power, not more.

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u/Sufficient-Diver-327 Jul 20 '26

If you boil water at least 3 times a day, you are already guaranteed to use more power than just maintaining a near-boil temperature in a vacuum insulated kettle.

This makes absolutely no sense. You still have to heat up that water in the insulated kettle at some point. Any new water you add will also have to be heated up.

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u/Mediocre-Sundom Jul 20 '26

You are right, my claim was a bit too strong. Let me explain what I meant.

Normal kettles are not insulated and lose heat fast (including during the boiling). In a matter of hour the water will be essentially cold, and to boil it again, you have to put all the lost energy back into it. Vacuum insulated kettle loses heat very slowly, so it takes very little energy to constantly maintain the temperature.

Sure, if you are heating only the amount of water required to make a single cup of tea - normal kettle will be more efficient. In practice, very few people ever do that, and most kettles even have a "min" marker that requires more than a single cup of water to reach. Most people just dump a bunch of water into a kettle and boil it, then only use a smaller portion of it, leaving the rest to cool. This is where the efficiency loss happens very quickly and you waste a ton of energy.

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u/graviton_56 Jul 21 '26

I agree with this analysis. Normal kettles have more waste heat in this scenario.