October 5th, 2006
Sony recalls notebook batteries
CNet News.com's Candace Lombardi reports that Sony is planning to announce a massive battery recall. Sony manufactures the rechargeable Lithium Ion batteries cells found in almost every major notebook computer sold today.
According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC):
The recall will encompass all possibly defective batteries, including those previously announced by manufacturers for specific notebook computers.
The Sony recall isn't expected to expand beyond notebook computer batteries.
This brings the total number of notebook batteries recalled to 7.8 million. Virtually every major notebook manufacturer has been plagued by this problem.
- Dell (4.2M) - 14 August 2006
- Apple (1.8M) - 25 August 2006
- IBM/Lenovo (526,000) - 28 September 2006
- Toshiba (830,000) - 29 September 2006
- Matsushita/Panasonic (6,000) - 05 September 2006
- Fujitsu (287,000) - 04 October 2006
- Hewlett-Packard* (135,000) 14 October 2005 and (16,000) 20 April 2006
- Hitachi (16,000) 06 October 2006 (UPDATED)
*This is interesting because Sony and Hewlett-Packard issued a joint statement stating that "because of HP's PC system configuration, HP notebooks using Sony battery cells are not prone to overheating issues that have recently been observed."
Sony needs to be more accountable for their QA practices and re-assure consumers (and notebook manufacturers) that their batteries are safe.
Jason D. O'Grady is the editor of PowerPage.org, which has been publishing daily mobile technology news since December 1995. For disclosures on Jason's industry affiliations, click here or to view Jason's full profile click here.
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