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Massive Sony Battery Recall Completes Debacle |
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Written by Adam Gosling
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Wednesday, 25 October 2006 |
Sony has surrendered to what was probably inevitable and
announced it will recall a further 3.5 million laptop batteries taking the
total recall of defective lithium ion batteries to somewhere in the region of
10 million units.
The announcement covers batteries manufactured by Sony in
the period August 2003 to February 2006 and is in addition to those already
recalled by Dell, Apple and Lenovo.
"For those customers and PC users who may have been affected
by the recent issues involving Sony-manufactured batteries, we regret any
inconvenience or concern this may have caused," said Yutaka Nakagawa, executive
deputy president, Sony Corporation.
Batteries will be replaced in units sold by other Sony
customers and in Sony brand notebooks also. Fujitsu, Gateway and Toshiba laptops
are all included in the recall.
While Sony initially said a global recall of all batteries
would not be required due to notebook design parameters that would protect
other manufacturers from the type of serious incidents that forced the Dell and
Apple recalls, it seems the explosion of a Lenovo notebook computer at LAX
Airport in Los Angeles
forced a rethink.
It was believed the ThinkPad notebooks would be safe from
explosive demonstrations thanks to the overheating and short circuit protections
designed into the notebook. The manufacturing process faults in the Sony
batteries resulted in metal particles inadvertently being mixed into the wrong
side of the cell.
The whole saga has been a public relations nightmare for
Sony which is struggling to regain its former status as a premium manufacturer
and has caused significant damage to the public perception of notebook safety
causing embarrassment to major Sony customers such as Dell and Apple computer.
"We are confident that our voluntary global battery
replacement program will address any remaining concerns or needs of our
customers and consumers," said Nakagawa.
Specific replacement programs' starting periods and
procedures for consumers have been or soon will be announced by each of the
participating PC manufacturers.
Sony will be responsible for the safe disposal of the
batteries.
The total cost estimate to Sony for this replacement
program, including costs associated with the Dell, Apple Computer and Lenovo
recalls, is expected to be about 51 billion yen (approx. US$430 million).
This estimate is based on the total potential of up to 9.6
million battery packs being covered, the company said in a statement.
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