Battery woes continue for Sony
More notebook manufacturers demand recalls and exchanges on certain battery packs
Lenovo and IBM, Fujitsu, Acer and Toshiba are the latest notebook manufacturers to announce recalls or exchanges for notebook batteries manufactured by Sony.
The latest round of recalls is a massive blow to Sony, which has had to announce a global replacement programme for certain battery packs. Both Fujitsu and Acer are in talks with Sony about replacing potentially dangerous or defective batteries. Toshiba is looking to replace more than 300,000 potentially defective, but not dangerous, notebook batteries. The battery recall has spread since the recall of 5.5 million Dell and Apple batteries in recent months (CRN, 21 August).
Lenovo and IBM have been forced to recall batteries after a notebook, usually supplied with a Sony battery, burst into flames as its owner queued to board a plane in the US.
A statement from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said 526,000 Sony-made batteries used in certain ThinkPad notebooks are being recalled. More than 350,000 of the notebooks affected were sold outside of the US in Europe and other markets.
The notebooks impacted include the ThinkPad T Series (T43, T43p, T60), R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e) and X Series (X60, X60s).
“The lithium-ion batteries can cause overheating,” the statement read. “Lenovo has received one confirmed report of a battery overheating and causing a fire that damaged the notebook computer. The incident… caused enough smoking and sparking that a fire extinguisher was used. There was minor property damage and no injuries were reported.”
According to analyst iSuppli, Sony is facing a bill of more than $280m to sort out the battery fiasco. However, the firm said the bill could be much higher. According to the CPSC, it is now possible that batteries used in other consumer Sony products, including DVD players and portable gaming devices, could be affected.
“As the notebook market becomes an increasingly dominant segment of the overall PC market, problems such as the Sony battery one will have a respectively greater impact in terms of financial cost, and in terms of negative press,” said Matthew Wilkins, principal analyst at iSuppli.
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Sony issues global battery recall