Sony embarks on its own battery recall

Sony is planning to announce a massive battery recall of its own, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) confirmed.

The recall, expected this month, will encompass all possibly defective batteries,laptop battery including those previously announced by manufacturers for specific notebook computers, said Julie Vallese, director of the Office of Public Affairs at the CPSC. But it is not expected to extend to batteries for devices other than laptops.

Sony makes lithium ion batteries for an array of electronics devices, including camcorders, portable DVD players and video game consoles. Contrary to a blog of Consumer Reports, which first reported the potential recall, though, only notebook batteries are currently covered, according to the CPSC and Sony, which would jointly conduct the recall.

"Sony has provided a wealth of technical data to the CPSC involving this tech, and it is omnipresent in a host of portable electronic devices, but as far as we know, from Sony's perspective, there is no initiative planned at this time that goes beyond what has already been communicated with respect to notebook computers," said Sony spokesman Rick Clancy, referring to Sony's official statement released on Thursday concerning a global replacement programme for notebook battery packs.

The CPSC is trying to contact Consumer Reports for a correction about a recall extension to other electronics devices,IBM ThinkPad R50 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R51 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R52 Battery, Vallese said.

"I think that the real way to look at it is that Sony is working with the CPSC to identify the widest scope of batteries that it may recall. Any recall that the agency will make will be limited to batteries that power notebook computers. We have no anticipation at this time beyond that," Vallese said.

"Sony and the CPSC are currently working together to identify what will be in the recall, the time frame of what was manufactured and sold. IBM Laptop Battery We will be trying to issue that as soon as possible," she said.

Richard Shim, a senior analyst with IDC, said: "The big issue is that while there is a small financial impact (to Sony as a company) compared to the perception impact, you have a number of significant brands that the consumer knows very well who were also involved in the recalls. They have basically pointed the problem at Sony by saying they have a poorly manufactured component.

"From a manufacturer standpoint, this gives them a lot of leverage going forward. Sony is going to have to rebuild not just with consumers, but with manufacturers. And the fact of the matter is that a lot of these manufacturers [buy batteries from multiple manufacturers]", Shim said.

Previous notebook battery recalls were issued by Dell and Apple in August for specific laptop models containing Sony batteries, after it was discovered that some batteries were overheating or exploding, causing fires even when the machines were turned off. At the time, Sony said the issue was confined to Dell and Apple computers, and the problem was attributed to a potential short circuit caused by tiny shards of metal left over in the battery cells from the manufacturing process.

On Friday, Toshiba announced that it, too, would be recalling 830,000 laptop computer batteries, while Dell increased the amount of laptop battery recalls from 4.1 million to 4.2 million. Lenovo announced a recall of 526,000 laptop batteries on Thursday, IBM ThinkPad R52 Battery, after a Lenovo ThinkPad T43 caught fire at the Los Angeles International Airport.

Separately on Monday, Sony and HP issued a joint statement that said a study of the issue found 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".

The issue has specifically affected travel, as some airlines have issued restrictions on the use of Dell and Apple laptops on planes. While the laptops may be brought on board,IBM ThinkPad R50 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R51 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R52 Battery, owners must first remove the battery and then use them only with an external power supply. This may be creating negative feelings among consumers, said Shim, as most airlines do not offer electrical outlets in economy class, making notebooks essentially unusable on planes. Sony needs to have high take-back rates — the number of bad batteries returned for good ones — so the airlines can lift the current bans, Shim said.

"If you can't use your notebook on the planes, that puts a pretty big cramp in [your] day," Shim said. The airlines "have to do what they are doing from a liability standpoint. You don't want to see that evening headline that a plane caught fire because someone's laptop battery overheated. That's a lose-lose for everybody", he said.

Vallese said consumers should keep the situation in perspective. According to the Portable Rechargeable Battery Association, an estimated 2 billion lithium ion cells will be manufactured in 2006. Of those, Vallese said, the actual number of incidents of fire in relation to batteries is few.

"We want consumers to respond because the risk is real, but the risk is low, and that needs to be understood," Vallese said.

Antig confident of fuel cell success
Taiwanese manufacturer Antig has claimed that its fuel cell product will be commercially deployed in notebook PCs in 2007.

Speaking at the CeBIT trade show in Hanover last week, IBM ThinkPad R51 Battery, Antig said that it was already in negotiations with several laptop makers who were interested in deploying its fuel cell technology. The company is confident that these talks will result in its laptop-powering methanol fuel cell being available to consumers, perhaps as early as the start of 2007.

"The industry is getting our fuel cell module now," said Linnet Tsai, deputy marketing manager at Antig. "Consumers will be next, once the manufacturers have validated our product."

Fuel cells have been "close to commercial deployment", at least according to the companies pushing them, for a decade or more. But there are signs that the technology may finally be ready for market. Last week, a US start-up called UltraCell said it was bringing a prototype fuel cell to market that can power a laptop for 14 hours.

One factor behind the industry's recent optimism is that restrictions preventing fuel cells from being carried on aeroplanes have recently been lifted by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.

Antig's product doesn't offer the promise of such high performance. Its product is a hybrid fuel cell, which means that the laptop uses a standard Lithium-ion battery as well as the fuel cell. The fuel cell fits into the media bay of the laptop,IBM ThinkPad R50 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R51 Battery, IBM ThinkPad R52 Battery, replacing a CD or DVD drive.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For full coverage of CeBIT 2006
see ZDNet UK's CeBIT 2006 toolkit.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tsai siad that Antig's fuel cell can't be used as the exclusive power source because it only delivers a power output of 12W.

"When you turn on your PC, you need 60W... to boot it up. Once you're running normally, you'll use around 12W so you'd just use the fuel cell then, and when the PC is in standby mode you can charge the laptop battery from the fuel cell," Tsai explained.

Tsai also said that Antig's current fuel cell module would increase laptop battery life to eight hours, IBM ThinkPad R50 Battery, compared to up to four hours today for a typical laptop. This is roughly equivalent to carrying a second laptop battery. Tsai claimed that future models would offer better performance.

Antig won't reveal which companies it is in talks with. Tsai would only say that they were "major Taiwanese OEMs [original equipment manufacturers]".