EU Wants Removable Batteries In iPhones

MojoKid writes "Current regulation, introduced with the Restriction of Hazardous Substances Directive (RoHS) in July of 2006, primarily sought to prevent the unnecessary use of toxic metals in batteries as well as making it easier to recycle and dispose of used batteries. The updated 'New Batteries Directive,' as discussed in New Electronics by Gary Nevision, would go much further. Article 11 of the directive, as currently written, would require that devices must be made in such a way as to allow batteries, either for replacement or at end of life for disposal to be 'readily removed.' Of course, Apple's iPhones and iPods wouldn't meet this requirement, as it stands. It's obvious that an iPhone battery replacement program could be considered a cash cow for Apple as well."

Comments

Back handed protectionism

[tjstork]

This is the EU basically trying to protect its markets for its own cell phone makers. I would think Nokia might be pushing for a regulation like this.

Watch carefully! There will probably be some nice sounding safety or environmental standard coming out of Washington somewhere that is the tit for this tat.

Re:Mooo

[thenewguy001]

That is quite expensive, but I've had my ipod for 3 years already and the battery is still going strong. I use it for at least 4-5 hours every day. When the battery does die, $85 will buy a much better cheap mp3 player than this old generation ipod. I don't see any point in replacing the battery for a 3+ year old device for that price.

Re:400 recharges

[zippthorne]

Actually, it's a little better than that. The "cycle life vs. DoD*" curve is not linear.

*DoD = Depth of Discharge. LiIons at 80% DoD get a "cycle life" of about 500. 80% seems to be pretty much the standard, to balance cycle life and volume+mass, but the improvement you get from reducing DoD is better than linear for a big range. (and the pain you get from increasing DoD is also worse than linear over a big range. This is one of the reasons that "deep cycling" a.k.a. battery conditioning is almost always a very bad idea.)

I have not, unfortunately, found any easily available studies that show the integrated total "life" vs. DoD. You could do it yourself with a few of the graphs available, though obviously it'd be pretty coarse.

Replaceable batteries are bad for the environment

[aristotle-dude]

Let's face it, how likely is it that the average Joe would recycle a dead battery assuming there were even any battery recycling facilities nearby?

Replaceable batteries most likely end up in the trash and then the landfill and if a battery is replaceable the manufacturer of the device will most likely look for the cheapest source for those batteries since they assume that the consumer will simply buy a replacement placing the extra cost of a longer lasting battery on the consumer.

Re:Mooo

[digitalunity]

I kind of want an iPhone just because they're sexy, but giving up my Treo with PalmOS would be almost impossible. I have actual shit to do with my phone and PalmOS has the software availability I need.