Sony Corp. announced that several PC makers, including Toshiba and HP, will soon commence a computer battery recall, affecting more than 100,000 computer users. The electronics maker faced similar situations before and decided to immediately take action.
The recall is considered rather small compared to the 2006 crisis when more than 9 million Sony PC batteries were recalled and the estimated cost was around $360 million. Also, last month, the company recalled 438,000 Vaio laptops due to the same concerns about overheating batteries.
This time, 35,000 batteries will be recalled by the U.S. government, while the rest of 65,000 from various other locations. The notice released by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commision announces the voluntary recall which applies to a series of 2.15 Ah lithium-ion cell batteries made in Japan. Sony also provided details about the targeted batteries, which have a barcode label beginning with A0, L0, L1 or GC that were shipped with HP Pavilion dv1000, dv8000 and zd8000 models; with Compaq Presario v2000 and v2400 machines and with HP Compaq nc6110, nc6120, nc6140, nc6220, nc6230,nx4800, nx4820, nx6110, nx6120 and nx9600 computers. The two most affected companies are HP and Toshiba, the first with about 74,000 PCs and the second with close to 15,000 notebook PCs. Toshiba’s recall involves 3,000 Satellite A70/A75, P30/P5, M30X/M35X and M50/M55 laptops and Tecra A3, A5 and S2 computers, while Dell will recall its OU091 battery found in the Latitude 110L and the Inspiron 1100, 1150, 5100, 5150 and 5160 computers.
The CPSC stated that consumers should take the announcement very seriously and stop using the recalled products immediately. Also, they should contact the manufacturer as soon as possible and demand the replacement of their battery.
So far, there have been 40 reports of overheated laptops, with four of them causing minor burns to their users. Also, there have been 21 cases of minor damage caused by fires and overheating.
The problem is apparently connected to a series of messed up factory changes that occured about four years ago and might have ruined the quality of certain battery cells and also a possible flaw in the metal foil for electrodes. "Machine settings were adjusted more frequently than usual on one line from October 2004 to June 2005, and we believe that a combination of such adjustments may have affected the quality of cells in certain manufacturing lots, creating the potential for such cells to overheat on rare occasion," explained one of Sony’s representatives.
The company explained that there are no concerns for the batteries released after 2006, and compared to the huge amount of batteries manufactured in the last six years (over 260 million units) the recalled amount, even combined with last year’s, is still considered a small fraction.
Business will continue as usual for all the companies involved, as such an incident will not be allowed to affect production and the plans for this year’s fourth quarter. It might actually lead to bigger productions and better security settings.
