Sir, We May Want to Rethink That “Blazing Speed” Ad Campaign
by John Paczkowski
Posted on October 31, 2008 at 5:45 AM PT
Sony’s battery brouhaha certainly holds its charge well. Two years after initiating the largest battery recall ever in the electronics industry, Sony (SNE) announced another after customers reported more than a dozen incidents of faulty lithium-ion notebook batteries bursting into flame.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission there have been 19 separate incidents of batteries overheating. Of those 19 incidents, 17 involved flames and 10 minor property damage. At least two people suffered minor burns. All told, the company is recalling about 100,000 2.15Ah battery packs used in Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Toshiba laptops. That’s only a fraction of the 9.6 million incendiary lithium-ion notebook batteries Sony recalled in 2006, which cost the company around $360 million.
But it’s a start.
