They’ve got a quite unusual stove that’s got a large battery in it so that it can operate when the power is off, and doesn’t need the installation of a 240v power connection. This avoids the cost of an electrical retrofit of old apartment buildings, which otherwise costs far more.
If you’ve already got your home wired for 240v, you can get an induction stove for far less.
These battery-equipped stoves are expensive right now because they’re being made in quite small numbers. The parts needed are coming down in price quite rapidly, so I expect to see them sold in the $2000/unit price range within a few years.
I am sorry but it is fucking hilarious how many wealthy people over the years have condescendingly told me cooking with gas is better, even as they complained about how it annoying it was to maintain a gas stove and all.
Idiots bought into the most obviously bullshit fossil fuel propaganda ever…
Gas is better than electric resistance stoves, which are not the same thing as these new induction stoves.
For most of my life I’d cooked on a resistive coil-top stove, and only in the last few years was I able to use a gas, and even more recently, induction stovetop.
Induction is far and away my favorite, but between gas and resistive, I don’t really find gas preferable to resistive. The only real advantage it has is quick heat control, but that can be overcome pretty easily on resistive stoves by either anticipating the slower heating/cooling curve, or simply lifting the pan or moving it to an inactive burner until the active one cools down to the desired temp.
I virtually always use cast iron cookware, which makes gas’s ability to make quick temp changes less of a noticeable advantage. More noticeable to me was the disadvantage of the handles on my cookware getting super hot very quickly with gas due to how much heat escapes around the sides, and the inability to place flammable things over a pot or pan to prevent splatter (like a paper plate).
I also really disliked the idea of potentially forgetting a burner being left on, but with the flame out. That only happened to me once, but it was quite scary to walk into a living room smelling strongly of gas. And in a kitchen without outside ventilation above the stove, the pollutants from burning gas were noticeable, especially if the oven was on.
On my personal scale, I’d rate gas stoves at the bottom despite their slightly advantageous heat responsiveness, with resistive in the middle, and induction the best of both worlds.
~~Sure, but you write off the adjustments and coping mechanisms you learned to mitigate the disadvantages of resistive heating as if those are a forgone conclusion. That borders on a disingenuous argument.
Summary to my eyes: Ackshully, resistive is better if you’re smart about it and anyone who doesn’t think this way is just not as smart as me…~~
Edit: sorry this was replied to wrong person and makes no sense
I wrote my personal reasons for preferring resistive over gas, despite the need to learn how to use it, which I prefer due to my own perceived negatives of gas. I actually live in a house with a gas stove right now, and I’m seriously considering having the kitchen wired for 240v someday just so I can install a resistive stove, since most of the time I use a portable induction cooktop in preference to using the gas stove. I also didn’t even get into the environmental aspect of gas stoves, which is another reason I don’t like to use them.
Calling that disingenuous and cope is… Certainly an interesting viewpoint. It would be similar to suggesting that anyone who prefers or speaks of the merits of bicycles over tricycles is disingenuous and coping due to bicycles requiring a learning period to effectively ride them, where as tricycles have no learning period (despite coming with their own advantages and disadvantages).
My apologies, I think I actually responded to the wrong person, I think I meant to direct that at the top parent comment of this thread that claimed favoring gas was always from a place of condescension. I think I only learned about the severity of the air pollution in recent years.
Sorry again, what I wrote makes no sense to me as a response to what you said.
Gas is not better than electric resistance stoves for one very serious, insurmountable issue, gas stoves give off a non-trivial amount of gas into the living area they are being used in, even when kitchen hoods are used. This is not something the gas stove industry wants to have a conversation about so we don’t here in the US.
This was not, and is still is not, common knowledge. We definitely do need to spread the word on that. I only learned this within the last year or two.
You were talking about cooking (i.e., the performance in terms of how well it delivers heat to the food), so that’s the question I answered. Gas is better than electric resistance in that respect. If you want to make a separate point about air quality that’s one thing, but you didn’t have to phrase your comments as bait.
Air quality can’t be separated from judging a stove that sits smack dab in the center in of your home.
If you think that air quality is a built in metric to every conversation about cooking, then I think it’s you who has unrealistic expectations.
I mean I have a naturally broader systemic view than most people and I know that just because you haven’t folded the concept of cooking into my view of a Unified Field Theory encompassing all of existence doesn’t make me smart and you dumb.
You are making food in an enclosed space that you are breathing in you fool. Of course it matters. I am not going to stoop to this pedantic of a level to continue to argue with you. If making food with your stove hurts your health and makes your body feel worse, it impacts the holistic experience of cooking and worse it hurts your health. Period, end of story.
All of those things are subjective experiences I have not experienced. Because ventilation, cooking frequency, and myriad other factors complicate the experience.
So go ahead and get on your high horse and whine about pedantry.
Period. Exclamation! Question mark?
Why would the gas be turned on for the stove? For cooking, right?
That means the amount of gas the other user mentioned is directly tied to the act of cooking, which is definitely pertinent to the conversation. If it were a discussion about simply the heating aspect of cooking, then you might be on to something.
I never understood why 'muricans kept using gas stoves. I haven’t seen a single one in Europe in the past 30+ years.
The answer is simple and stupid, Fossil Fuel Propaganda.
https://climateandcommunity.org/research/deconstructing-gas-propaganda/
I guess the fact that they use an antiquated electrical grid system (110v) make things much harder for them to switch.
Your guess is wrong. Standard American electrical service is 220v. Our transformers are center tapped so if you measure from neutral to either of the two hots, you get 110v, and across both hots is 220v. Standard outlets are wired for 110, things like stoves, dryers, water heaters and HVAC units are wired for 220. I could go out and buy an induction range this afternoon and it would slot right in where my glass top electric range is.
Why have Americans been slow to move away from gas stoves or to induction stoves? Well…
- Natural gas has remained very cheap in the United States. The United States has tremendous domestic natural gas reserves, so the pressure to move to other cooking fuels hasn’t really existed here like it did elsewhere.
- Earlier electric ranges, the ones with exposed coils, were legitimately inferior. They’re harder to do much other than boil water on because of how slow they are to heat and cool. They’re still seen as downmarket landlord specials today. Ceramic cooktop electrics were trendy for awhile.
- Early induction stoves were quite expensive, to the point of being gimmicky.
- Induction cooktops diddn’t work with the majority of popular American cookware. From the 60’s to the 90’s, trendy cookware such as Corningware ceramic, Pyrex borosilicate glass, Calphalon aluminum, Revereware copper jacketed stainless, and solid copper don’t work with induction stoves. In the 21st century, most pans made have been built with induction in mind, so your typical household now doesn’t have to replace their cookware along with their stove.
None of that supports your America Bad narrative so you won’t pay attention to it though.
Earlier electric ranges, the ones with exposed coils, were legitimately inferior. They’re harder to do much other than boil water on because of how slow they are to heat and cool. They’re still seen as downmarket landlord specials today. Ceramic cooktop electrics were trendy for awhile.
Technology Connections made a great video that touched on resistive stoves which showed how to overcome their slower thermal responsiveness, which I’ve used for most of my life to great effect. Once you know the trick of how to use them, they’re quite easy to cook almost anything on.
Almost every American home has 240V coming in, with 2 hot wires with 120V AC exactly 180° out of phase with each other, and a neutral wire that’s supposed to be roughly ground voltage. The standard is to split the 240V into 120V for each circuit at the actual breaker panel, by feeding each normal circuit in the house one hot and one neutral wire. But setting up a particular circuit for 240V service is trivial by using both hot wires.
And the actual distribution grid itself, before it hits the transformer that steps it down to 240V right before actual customer meters, is going to be much, much higher voltage in any country. Higher voltage means less line loss, so power lines use high voltage. That part doesn’t differ significantly between countries.
Anyway. That’s why most American electric stoves and ovens are actually 240V.
I know that our Electric stovetop is connected to the 400v Three Phase circuit.
So even with 240v mains power the Stove is usually connected to a circuit with the highest available power.
But even the 240v plug in induction stovetops have plenty power for cooking.
I’m curious whether voltage even matters, and what the wattage of each burner is, and what the total power max for the whole stove is.
A typical US stove draws either 40A or 50A at 240V, so that’s a max power of about 12,000W. But each burner is usually limited to something about 5000-7500W.
With induction, the heat is efficiently placed right into the pan, so actual performance probably matches a lower nominal power resistive stove (or gas stove).
I like gas for diversification of energy sources. When we had “snowpocalypse” here in Texas, I was able to stay running with a natural gas generator for some power, gas heat to stay warm and a stove to cook. The power draw would have been too high if I was electric only.
Yeah but the “snowpocalypse” energy crisis was in large part a serious problem for people because Texas hates Texans and privatized the electricity grid leaving it brittle and unable to adapt to emergencies or changes.
You are living in a functionally collapsed society in Texas, and if that is a reason to cook around a campfire, sure! I just think you have to contextualize that. I’ll keep using my electric stove and go find social support services in an emergency if needed because my state actually gives a shit about human beings unlike the shithole that is Texas.
If you need a gas stove to survive in Texas because the state government is constantly trying to kill you in pursuit of the deranged and cruel interests of the rich, I can’t really disagree with that in good conscience, but it is a pretty awful reason to have to buy a gas stove.
You should leave Texas if you can.
MN pretty regularly has electric outages due to storms taking down lines, etc.
They’re fixed within hours. Because our state electric provider is under strict regs as to what they can and cannot do, and the state gov takes grid reliability seriously in a place where it routinely drops below 0 F.
What I’m saying is that you need to drag your state officials out into the street and [REDACTED] until they start acting like an actual government.
Moved from a condo with an insanely nice Wolf gas range to a house with a cheapo electric range that we promptly replaced with an induction range.
Never going back. Induction is fucking wonderful magic. So quick, so powerful, so controllable, and having most of the surface remain cool is such a nice side benefit too
I think the biggest magic of induction is ease of cleaning. Nothing gets burned on, ever. Just a spray of cleaner, wipe, move on. Saved me hours a year.
I moved into a house that already had an induction stovetop and I will never ever go back to gas again. It’s easy to clean, don’t have to worry about open flames, and heats quicker and more evenly. When I’m cooking, I can actually use the unused burners to place my ingredients on for easy access. It’s amazing and that’s not even getting into the environmental benefits.
Hmmm? Battery equipped stoves? I’ve had an induction stove for 12 years and there is no battery. What’s the story?
You might have a 230V stove. The ones they age discussing in the article are 120V capable but to offload the need for more power they use battery.
I had never even considered this to be a problem so when I read the article it just didn’t compute. Ta
Isn’t 220 - 240V the norm for stoves? What would be the point of a 120V stone? Maybe for an off grid cabin with limited power?
Did you read the article? Or even the two paragraphs long summary of the article OP posted?
I did read the summary, but aren’t the standard voltage of a power outlet 230~V? Maybe I’m too tired and missing something.
EDIT: I forgot that the US uses a different standard, my bad.
I will not buy an induction stove unless I know what its pulse width modulation frequency is.
PWM is vital; I can melt chocolate on my stove today but “low” often is 100% power at 90% off 10% on and burns food.
Also making sure the boards and chips are hefty enough. I don’t trust Samsung and LG to lay enough of a trace on the board or use a sufficiently large heatsink on the switching circuitry that it’s not going to melt through when I boil water daily. I don’t recall details but last time I was looking into it, even some higher end brands had failure rates after 5-10 years (or sooner if the “power boost” or whatever was used because they cheaped out. My gas stove will survive the apocalypse, but whether it survives the Operation Epic Fail is another thing.
I don’t trust Samsung and LG….
My first induction stove was a Samsung purchased in 2011-ish. One of the circuit boards had to be fixed in 2021-ish by a third party I found on eBay because Samsung stopped making parts for my stove. A just under 10 year old stove.
My Whirlpool washing machine, bought at the same time as the stove, had an issue at the same time as the stove. Parts were readily available.
My new motto for appliances is “Has the company (name brand) ever made a cell phone or a television? Yes? Then I don’t buy their (large) appliances.”
I have burned out three induction hot plates and zero gas ranges in my life (from $120 to $300 units). I keep getting new ones because it’s something I can’t live without, but it does make me hesitant to drop $4k on an induction range. I also kind of just hate glass stove surfaces for a bunch of reasons.
If you have some space or a septic tank you could always produce your own biogas:
Damn, I didn’t even think that these are also made as cheaply as possible and in a way that makes them unrepairable.
It’s a lot like electric cars: I get that they’re better but I don’t trust any company to make one that doesn’t do something shitty.
It’s a lot like electric cars: I get that they’re better but I don’t trust any company to make one that doesn’t do something shitty.
This is irrational past a certain point however, there is no reason non-electric cars won’t be programmed to do shitty things to?
This is Xenophobia wrapped up in our emotions around cars, there is little evidence that Electric Vehicles are more vulnerable to being hacked than other kinds of cars, the reason everyone is nervous about this is that “western” car makers are being left in the dust because of their own stupid choices and everyone feels anxious about it. This is how it manifests, a general mistrust in electric vehicles we intuitively seem to have that is a mirage obscuring feelings of insecurity about our own societies.
America’s gonna end up getting left behind
This is irrational past a certain point however, there is no reason non-electric cars won’t be programmed to do shitty things to?
If you’re comparing new electric cars to new internal-combustion cars, sure. But old internal-combustion cars are a non-enshittified option too, and unfortunately, there’s no such thing as an old [mass-market] electric car.
If I could have, say, a GM EV1, or a 2001 Ford Ranger EV, or a 2001 Rav4 EV, or something like that (but with the NiMH batteries swapped for modern lithium ones), I’d totally get an EV. But those cars were all low-volume production when they were new, and are surely even harder to get a hold of now.
The Nissan Leaf is perhaps what you missed. My 2015 Leaf still has 80% SOC on its pack (75 mile range) so it is quite usable for 98% of my driving. It did have Nissan telemetry, but they’ve phased that out for the old Leafs, plus I simply removed the SIM. Parts available everywhere, third-party independent mechanics know the cars, and there are multiple companies offering battery upgrades, as well.
I didn’t miss the Leaf, but I had ruled it out because of the telemetry. This…
but they’ve phased that out for the old Leafs
…is news to me. Got a source where I can read more?
This is Xenophobia wrapped up in our emotions around cars
What? Tesla is like the worst offender for this.
Which is why Tesla is collapsing as a car brand in the US, most of the people who like Musk do not really want to buy an electric car, it just seemed like the cool thing to do while getting a “self driving” “smart” car.
Everybody who doesn’t like Musk won’t buy a Tesla because they suck anyways.
Yes but how is it xenophobia?
Because of distrust and paranoia that is applied selectively to electric cars because they are associated with foreign made.
I don’t really want any car made after 2016, and will probably be buying used for the rest of my life unless car companies start acting different.
Also, it has nothing to do with hacking but thanks for showing you’re a tankie.
Ok what does it have to do with?
Also please define “tankie” for me in your own words thanks :)
Data tracking, right to repair, overall build quality, user interface, subscription services, planned obsolescence, and gimmicky features. And you’re exactly right that it applies to every modern car.
And a tankie is someone who projects xenophobia into a discussion about cars when it wasn’t even mentioned. And also capitalizes it randomly.
And a tankie is someone who projects xenophobia into a discussion about cars when it wasn’t even mentioned. And also capitalizes it randomly.
What?
why?
Because slow pulse width modulation will burn my marinara and risotto.
That may not be PWM. My (cheap) induction cooker seems to do actual high frequency PWM at medium-to-high settings, where the heat is essentially always on, but varies total power. It seems to cycle at lower power settings, with multiple-seconds of on and off. “3” is always on; “2” is 5 seconds heat + 10 seconds off. No clue why it would switch modes like that. I’d assume it’s a manufacturing cost, but it means they had to implement both PWM and slow cycles.
Any time pulses are used to modulate, regardless of frequency, is PWM.
My cheap induction hot plate has 10 second cycles. So on 10 it’s always on, 9 is on for 9 seconds and off for one, all the way down to level 1.
The problem is that it’s so effective at heating that even a second of full power will burn things.
One way I get around this is to put a thermal mass like a cast iron pan under the pot I want to cook slowly since it evens out the pulses but then it heats extremely slowly.
But I’m not gonna drop a couple grand plus whatever the electrician will cost for something that burns my food.
One way I get around this is to put a thermal mass like a cast iron pan under the pot I want to cook slowly since it evens out the pulses but then it heats extremely slowly.
Yeah, at that point it’s just like a shitty resistive heating stove with extra steps.
I’ve done a similar thing on cheap resistive stoves because they also have terrible pulse width modulation.
Sidenote, I love this comment
Would something other than a slab of cast iron work? Thinner or different material like carbon steel?
I know next to nothing about this stuff just trying to understand if we’re talking about conduxtivityand heatsinks or like field dissipation
The thinner it is, the faster it would respond to changes in energy input. Sometimes that’s what you want, but the guy you’re asking is concerned about burning his food with sudden heat, so he wants something thick that responds slowly.
There are steel plates for that purpose. I have one for cookware that’s not induction friendly, and it works fine, it’s just not very convenient.
My carbon steel pan doesn’t work as well, probably because it’s less dense and therefore has wider temperature swings than a cast iron pan.
One way I use my carbon steel with it is if I want to sear something in my instant pot insert. It doesn’t work on induction but I can get it rocket hot this way.
Wait… people in New York were still cooking with gas? In 2026?
It’s quite widespread in the US
Indiana is about to be next the way the gas companies are fucking us on nonsense fees.
Why anyone ever bought a gas stove is the real mystery.
Resistance electric burners really are shit. If you’ve never cooked on one, it’s hard to express just how much a game changer induction is. Not to mention people’s legacy of copper, stainless, and aluminium cookware.
I mean, 70 years ago, maybe this still made sense. But in the present?
Electric resistance or infrared simply doesn’t have the response time. Plus many of them don’t actually have “medium” but just do on/off at 50% duty cycle (I can’t remember what that’s called) so there’s absolutely no nuance to them. Many of the induction stoves share this problem with the added complexity of delicate circuitry.
There’s a lot of talk about air quality with gas stoves and I am not going to downplay that, because electric isn’t a magic switch - most people don’t have adequate ventilation to keep the VOC and PM levels in check when cooking on an electric stove let alone gas.
I bought a gas stove 2 years ago and replaced electric. I did it because I needed to free up the circuit for other things and it was cheaper to replace the stove than get a upgraded panel. I ran the gas line myself but I won’t do a electrical upgrade myself. I have automatic exhaust when the stove turns on so its not much of a deal.
That’s why NYC is using induction stoves with batteries that can trickle charge over a day
Induction is extremely inconvenient if you primarily cook Chinese or Mexican food for your household.
Wok-shaped induction stoves don’t exist in the US, and the lack of an open flame makes it hard to properly char peppers on an electric broiler. So you’re left with food with no wok-hei or char flavor.
I see a lot of people calling others stupid for using a gas stove, and at this point I’m not sure if it’s just racism disguised as environmentalism.
Wok-shaped induction stoves don’t exist in the US
I see that you’re getting downvoted. Can anyone weigh in and explain why Rachelhazideas is wrong?
