Who's next on the battery recall list?

Stan Beer
Friday, 29 September 2006 22:22

Opinion and Analysis

After three major battery recalls, from three of the biggest notebook suppliers, the world is wondering whether there will be another company to suffer a burning incident caused by a defective Sony Lithium Ion battery, which in turn will lead to another major recall.

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Not that we should expect any vendor to follow this advice, but wouldn't it make sense for Sony and all of its remaining notebook business partners to get together on this issue and do so openly?

Is it not perhaps a good idea for all of the vendors and Sony to check out which inventory among the remaining tens of millions of notebooks in the marketplace that haven't had a battery recall may possibly be at risk because they carry the same model batteries that have been recalled?

Sony doesn't want to give out the names of its notebook business partners but, if that's the case, then those notebook vendors should be talking to their respective customer bases right now.

Do notebook owners have a right to know if their brand is powered by the same model batteries that have been recalled?

If there are indeed other brands of notebooks that are powered by suspect batteries, should airlines be informed of what they are?

So far, thankfully, there have been no really serious incidents, involving deaths because of notebook fires. Hopefully we won't have to wait for one before this issue is solved proactively.