Battery group seeks laptop safety
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Updated safety standards for laptop batteries should be in place within the next 12 months, a working group says.
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In the wake of two massive recalls of laptop batteries, Matsushita has announced it is recalling 6,000 batteries in its Panasonic laptops, as loose springs on the battery cover can enter the battery, which can result in overheating when dropped or mishandled.
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Battery making startup Boston Power is more than tripling production of its&#160;Sonata laptop battery, a device that offers faster charging and longer life than conventional lithium-ion batteries, it is due to announce Thursday.Boston Power has also struck a manufacturing partnership with Taiwan&#39;s GP Batteries, which will begin making the cells to supplement current production at China&#39;s HYB Battery. GP will produce around 1 million cells per month, said Christina Lampe-Onnerud, founder and CEO of Boston Power. HYB currently produces between one third and one half that amount, she said.The Sonata battery was a hit when it was unveiled at the Demo 2007 conference in January 2007 because, according to Boston-Power, it gets over some of the main frustrations laptop users have with their battery packs. Namely it can be charged to 80 percent of total capacity in 30 minutes so even on a short lay-over a meaningful amount of power can be recharged into the battery and it should also last the average three years that people keep their laptops without a noticeable degradation in performance.In light of a series of high-profile problems and recalls of lithium-ion batteries, Boston-Power is also pushing safety. It says its Sonata battery uses less reactive chemicals and has a series of protective controls that make it safer than competing batteries.With the extra production, Boston-Power will be looking to pick up customers for the Sonata batteries. It has already been working closely with Hewlett-Packard.&quot;We are delighted with the response from the market. Interest is really, really large&quot; said Lampe-Onnerud. &quot;We have worked with top-tier notebook makers for several years and they remain extremely engaged. Many have already qualified our system but we&#39;re a small company so we have to be selective about who we work with.&quot;Boston-Power has also closed a third round of financing for $45 million, which it will announce Thursday. The round, led by Oak Investment Partners, also included additional money from existing investors Venrock Associates, Granite Global Ventures and Gabriel Venture Partners. The latest investment brings to $68 million the total amount of funds raised by Boston-Power.&#160;
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Stanford researchers say silicon nanowires could help extend the life of a lithium ion battery for laptops from 4 hours to 40 hours.
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The affected batteries could overheat, posing a fire hazard. Apple received four reports of these batteries overheating. No injuries have been reported.
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Sanyo-made fire hazard Lenovo is recalling more than 200,000 Thinkpad batteries after some caught fire when owners dropped their laptops.â¦
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Toshiba Corp. will exchange 340,000 notebook computer batteries, which the company said do not pose a fire hazard. but could could cut power to the notebooks, causing users to lose unsaved work
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Toshiba has recalled more Sony laptop computer batteries due to fire risk, rekindling concerns over the safety of Sony-made batteries.
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Fujitsu is the latest laptop maker to issue a recall because of a defective battery. This one affected 287,000 laptops that use Sony batteries.
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The Lenovo Group and I.B.M. are recalling more than half a million notebook computer batteries made by Sony after a computer caught fire.
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Apple has had to recall up to 28,000 notebook batteries that were sold for use with their 15-inch PowerBook. Apple reports that faulty batteries sold between January 2004 and August 2004 can overheat and pose a fire hazard.
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Toshiba is recalling about 5,100 laptop batteries that could overheat and burn users.
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Lenovo Inc. recalled about 100,000 laptop computer batteries Thursday, warning that they could overheat and cause a fire.
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Extended-life batteries made by Sanyo and sold by Lenovo as ThinkPad options can overheat after being dropped.
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Blog: A Sony battery in a Toshiba laptop that was part of last year's massive recall caught fire last month in Great Britain.
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Dell Inc.'s record-setting recall of 4.1 million notebook computer batteries raised safety concerns about the power source of countless electronic devices, but experts said the problem appears to stem from flaws in the production of the laptop batteries, not the underlying technology.
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(InfoWorld) - Fujitsu'sÂ recall of defective batteriesÂ will affect 287,000 notebook PCs, including 63,000 in Japan, the company said Wednesday. Fujitsu last week became the fifth recent PC vendor to recall batteries using lithium-ion cells made by Sony Energy Devices. A manufacturing defect can cause those cells to short circuit, overheating and in some cases catching fire. So Fujitsu has asked both users of certain notebook PCs and dealers with unsold computers in their inventory to return the affected batteries, said Sean Nemoto, investor relations manager for Fujitsu. Dell started the rush when it announced on Aug. 14 it wouldÂ recall 4.1 million batteries, following complaints from a handful of customers that their PCs had burst into flames. Other vendors quickly followed, includingÂ Apple Computer,Â Toshiba,Â Lenovo Group, IBM, andÂ Fujitsu. Together they have recalled 7.9 million batteries. Sony has beenÂ pushing vendors to recall its batteriesÂ even in the absence of customer complaints. Sony said Thursday that it was working with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission to recall any remaining defective cells in notebooks worldwide. The move will not affect other types of consumer electronics that use lithium-ion cells, such as cameras and music players. Notebook vendors insist that the number of actual fires is very small, amounting to just fractions of a percent compared to the many millions of batteries recalled. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has counted 47 incidents of smoke or fire coming from notebook computers from January 2001 to August 2006. Sony and the vendors continue to debate whether the fault lies solely in battery cell manufacturing, or also in the design of notebook PCs. Sony designs its batteries to shut down after a short circuit, but in certain occasions they will continue to overheat. "The potential for this to occur can be affected by variations in the system configurations found in different notebook computers," the company said. Hewlett-Packard said Monday that its customers had not experienced any overheated batteries thanks to redundant safety features used in HP notebooks. "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 companies said in a joint statement. However, other vendors insist their designs are also safe. Dell's recall is careful to state that "only the described batteries are subject to this recall and not the notebook computers themselves."