Just because you can build an adapter that allows you to boil water with your EV charger doesn’t mean you should – Jalopnik

We’ve all been there: after months, if not years, of not drinking hot tea, you suddenly get the urge to drink some colorful leafy water. Only you only have two minutes to boil the water, and with your American kettle it will take much longer. What should you possibly do? Without tea? If you only have a gas car, that’s exactly what you’re going to do, but if you happen to have an electric car and also have a Level 2 home charger, at least you have options.

And by options I mean you can order a British tea kettle, plug in an adapter, plug it in and before you know it, have water boiling. Would a normal person ever do that? No chance. Is it practical in any way? Of course not. Should you try it? Please don’t. But is it still a fun experiment and exactly what YouTube was made for? Absolute. And how can anyone be expected not to at least wonder what else you could do with the giant charging cable currently connected to their Polestar 2?

Luckily, our friend Alec Watson from Technology Connections isn’t a normal human, and he also happens to have a hugely successful YouTube channel, which means he recently tried out the idea. And what do you know: it really works.

Since this all starts with a British kettle, you’ll obviously need something to plug the weird British plug into. And luckily for you, for some reason Leviton sells a BS 1363 socket that fits into a North American junction box. If you’re going to do something weird, you might as well make it really weird. Plug it into a J1772 connector, do something nerdy to trick the charging cable into thinking it’s plugged into a car, and you’re good to go.

How much faster did the water boil? Almost exactly twice as fast as the regular American boiler, which makes sense when you consider that the British boiler draws double the voltage. And most importantly, there was no fire. But with a little determination, you might be the one to show the internet what the version that ends with a house fire looks like. Or, you know, just stick to boiling water for tea in the microwave, like a normal person.