I stumbled on the $7,000 Impulse Labs induction cooktop two years ago at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. It had a space-gray metal frame and heating elements that seemed to hover over its surface, and it looked more like a DJ console than a thing you’d use to prepare scrambled eggs or Thomas Keller’s viral pan-roasted zucchini.I’m a big fan of induction cooking, which uses an electromagnetic field to create heat in a pan made of magnetic metal — only the pan gets hot, not the cooktop. And while most products at CES are “vaporware,” tech-in-the-sky fantasies that never reach the masses, I kept my eye on the battery-powered Impulse Cooktop, intrigued by the small but growing number of battery-boosted induction-cooking appliances (some of which we’ve tested). The Lamborghini of induction cooktopsImpulse CooktopThis powerful and precise cooktop is beautiful and impressively intuitive to use — and it’s very expensive. It comes in 30- and 36-inch widths, and unlike most other full-size induction cooktops, it can run on a regular 120-volt outlet.$6,999 from Impulse LabsThese models use the type of battery found in some electric cars; it stores power, which allows the appliance to run on a regular 120-volt outlet instead of the 240-volt version required for most electric stoves. Installing an appliance that runs on 240 volts can be expensive, tricky, and time-consuming, especially in older buildings with multiple apartments.On the Impulse Cooktop, that battery can also produce a whopping boost of heat by channeling 10,000 watts to a single element — that’s 3,000 more watts than the next most powerful induction cooktop that I've come across in my research. Those 10,000 watts are comparable to around 34,000 British thermal units, on a par with the capabilities of the most expensive gas ranges. (The most powerful of our gas slide-in picks, however, max out around 21,000 Btu.)Impulse Labs started shipping its cooktop in the summer of 2025, and it has been sold out pretty much ever since. But in the spring of 2026, I borrowed a model from the company and had it installed in the Wirecutter test kitchen at our facility in Long Island City, New York. I wanted to see if this ultra-expensive, ultra-powerful appliance delivered the heat it promised.