Yes, it's funny that when the standard unit is a somewhat lower number (so the KW number is the same magnitude but just a bit lower / less impressive than in HP) there is more resistance to the change.
I think in EU it is mostly due to the German car industry (and all the associated publications) unwilling to change.
In the German speaking world everyone knows what a hp is (PS), how much his car has, his past cars had, in which configurations their car is available... although the kW is what is printed on the documents since ages now.
Nobody likes change. Some people still complain about the Euro, and that the DM was so much better... At least it is not called ECU.
This is so true! Fortunately, for BEV we seem to switch and this works incredibly well. You see kW and you know its about electrics, you see HP (or rather: PS) and you know it's about one of those wonky old "explosions in a tincan" things that eventually displaced the horse. It's quite powerful linguistic era demarcation.
I'd dispute that. Everybody can roughly imagine a 1/4 multitude of the 2.5 kW of a typical hairdryer, nobody has a meaningful mental image of the amount of continuous work one could expect rotating a number horses (peak power per horse is about 15 hp)
But seriously, I do like the split-phase power we have in the US. I think we get the best of both worlds, having lower voltages in most living spaces, and higher voltages reserved for high-power appliances.
>>I think we get the best of both worlds, having lower voltages in most living spaces
How is this possibly a benefit for anything though. It's not like 110V is safer in any practical way, if you stick something in a socket it will kill you just as much as 220V would, so it seems like for literally no reason at all American homes have a much less "ability" to support a wide range of devices that work without any issue elsewhere in the world.
It's safer because of ohms law. Anything you short it with (whether that be an object that might heat up, or a human) will pass half the current and a quarter of the power.
I've been shocked with 120v on bare skin multiple times.
Yes, but my point is that it's still just as deadly for a human. It's like asking whether you want to be in a plane crash going 300mph or 600mph - it doesn't really matter. The #1 improvement in home safety when it comes to the electrical system is the socket design to prevent foreign objects entering(like the British plug design for instance), and second one is a working RCB fuse to kill the power before you even feel a tingle. 110V or 220V doesn't really matter.
Crashing at 300mph is guaranteed deadly. Being shocked with 120v is not. I've been shocked a half-dozen times and I haven't been injured in any way.
Current code in US/Canada also requires RCDs (we call them GFCI) in some places (and AFCI everywhere, which the rest of the world hasn't really adopted) and shuttered outlets... but these do not catch all types of faults. For instance, if a human conducts electricity across two conductors connected to an RCD/GFCI, it won't trip. It only trips if current is drawn to ground or to another circuit. Layered safety is a good approach.
That's not to say that 240v systems are unsafe -- they just have different characteristics and requirements because of it.
Yeah I've been shocked a few times with 240v and it's not nice but doesn't often kill people. Most electricity caused deaths are from something causing a fire rather than shocks I think.
