> 240V outlets in garages would increase the cost of new homes by $1,000 they may have a different opinion on the matter,
A home has ~300 outlets. If each outlet costs $1,000, it would cost 300K just on outlets for the builder. The cost of an outlets is in cents or fractions of cents, these are manufactured in bulk and shipped from China, not artisanal hand-crafted NFT outlets from etsy as collectible items for speculation.
Homes ALREADY have multiple 240V, for HVAC, electric stove, dryer. Dryer is in the garage or in a laundry room right next to the garage. An electrician does all the wiring and outlets, which costs nothing at build time. However, if you have to add it later, it will cost $3,000 - $,5000 to retrofit.
> What is the environmental cost of mining and producing literal tons of copper wire and installing it in new homes for outlets that never get used? What is the cost of using skilled electrician labor to install useless outlets instead of having those same electricians working on building a new solar plant?
Most of the outlets (70 - 90%) in the house are unused. There are 10+ outlets just in the master bath and closet. If you are so concerned about utilization, why not start a campaign to cut the total number of outlets to a total of 10 per house? You would have saved $290K/house going by your math and hailed as the savior of american dream, making homes affordable for everyone.
> Years ago I owned a home built in the 1980's that had a central vacuum system. It was a cool concept but utterly useless. No new homes that I know of have these systems anymore.
And you could have also bought a home with a stable. Means nothing. You could have also bought a home without plumbing or indoor toilets.
> The future is uncertain. Ten years from now people may not even want to own cars if autonomous taxis take off. The whole concept of a garage may morph into something unrecognizable to us today. But if you get your way, we'll waste tons of money putting 240V outlets that never get used as intended.
Or there could be a manhattan project to build coal based cars and all homes need coal storage. Everyone could have converted to Amish and no need for any modern technology. Or people may stop using bathrooms and go back to nature, so we can remove them as well. Or Elon Musk would've shipped everyone to Mars, Earth is destroyed, our work here is finished, I promise we'll build something better on Mars, Lets go. Or there could be genocide or people sent to concentration camps. The future is unknowable to most people who can't think where the world is headed. ICE cars are over everywhere, the world is at 50% EVs now. The only exception is US.
> Home builders aren't stupid: they know what their customers want.
Lots of builders are already building with it. Some states have mandated it. It is not uniform. Just think about bathrooms being introduced and not everyone knows about it. But if you make a building code, builders will build to code and no more defecating outside. Information about good ideas does not spread immediately and all at once. After the invention of bathrooms and indoor plumbing, it took 100+ years for all countries to expect it.