A 240V 50A outlet requires a 6 AWG wire with four conductors. The wire is $10 per foot. The outlet is $50, the box is $30. The breaker for the panel is $100. Just material costs get you to $500. Throw in installation labor and you are easily north of $1,000.
If you think the two outlet types are even remotely similar in cost you really don’t have any business teaching this stuff.
And no, just because you have a 240V outlet in the laundry room doesn’t mean you can piggy back off of it for another outlet in the garage. You’d need a breaker rated for 100A and wire rated to deliver that kind of current, which I suspect would be even more costly than having two separate wire runs and circuits.
My frustration is that you have very little knowledge of how any of this works, but are recruiting equally ignorant children to engage in political activism to change building code in a way that will increase the cost to build new homes and cause more damage to the environment through wasted copper usage. All under the guise of educating them, ironically.
As they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Do you honestly think the reason some new homes a century ago were built without modern plumbing after it was invented was because people were unaware that such a concept existed? You think it was an information problem?
No, it was because of cost. Most people were fine using an outhouse or chamber pot and had done so all their lives. Sure, indoor plumbing would be awesome but the cost to install it wasn’t worth it to the buyers of new homes at the time. Which is exactly why people choose to omit a 240V outlet from a newly built home today.
Think of how many fewer homes would have been built back then if you mandated each one contain at least one toilet. You can’t just conjure things into being by enacting rules and regulations that say something must be so. In the real world things cost money and require resources to produce.
I strongly encourage you to watch some videos of electricians installing 240V outlets on YouTube and educate yourself on why they are expensive. Then go watch some economics 101 videos on the law of supply and demand, and what happens to supply when you artificially increase the price of a good through government mandate.
There’s nothing wrong with being ignorant. But choosing to stay there, that is an unforgivable choice. If you’re going to teach this stuff, get the knowledge you need to do it well and cut the political activism.
The kids will likely respond better and I think you’ll have more fun too. Understanding how electricity actually works in a house is way more fun than reading building code anyway.