Also, in quite a few houses, the initial run of water out of the hot tap is cold for quite some time until the hot water has either made it round from the hot tank, or if you have a combi boiler system then after that has fired itself up, got up to temperature, and then the hot water has made it round the pipes from there. It may be that the washing machine uses so little water that most of the water it gets from the hot supply is cold, wasting all that energy.
For me indeed it takes >30 sec to get hot water in the kitchen (modern kitchens have small boilers), but the washers are near the boiler, so hot fill would be more efficient. The boiler supplies 60 deg C water though, so that is not enough for the 90 deg C program for example. And then you need a heating element anyway...
These days most washing cycles run a lot cooler. My washing powder/soap recommends 30 but I usually run at 40. I know that I need to do the occasional high temp wash too though.
