HP Recalls 70,000 Laptop Batteries

angry tapir writes "Hewlett-Packard has recalled Lithium-Ion batteries used in some of its laptops, as they pose a fire hazard. The recall covers about 70,000 batteries used in the company's HP and Compaq-branded laptops. The affected laptops can be found here."

Comments

Re:No batteries =

[Chyeld]

That being they are being manufactured in a country with historically poor quailty control and an incentive to cut corners whenever possible.

Re:No batteries =

[Locke2005]

I am beginning to suspect that there is a flaw in the design of today's lithium batteries.

Modern lithium batteries are designed to achieve the the highest energy density possible. I suspect they do this by cutting as close as possible to the limits. The higher the energy density, the greater the chance of a short circuit and the greater the chance of a meltdown if something shorts out. Sure, they could design safer batteries, but those would weigh more and last less time on a charge -- not exactly the attributes the market is demanding. There may be exceptions, but in general if you want to store more energy in a smaller space with less weight, it is inevitably going to be more volatile.

I wonder how long it will be before the TSA makes these batteries illegal on planes.

4th Recall in 5 years

[Het Irv]

This is the 4th recall of batteries by HP in 5 years... You would think, okay maybe the first is a fluke, everyone screws up sometimes. The second time, you get a bit worried, but four times? I think someone in HP needs to work out how much each of these recalls is costing them per year, maybe those figures will convince them that manufacturing them to a higher standard wouldn't be a bad idea.

Re:No batteries =

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

We're well past that sort of chickenshit bad quality control.

Lets see the Chinese try to build a bad laptop battery that takes down the world's financial system in a whirlwind of pure fraud when it catches fire!

USA!USA!USA!

Re:No batteries =

[Sandbags]

Why not simply state it as it is:

"3rd world battery manufacturer failes to deliver on contractual quality guidelines and costs HP a shitload of dough recalling 70,000 batteries, while themselves shrinking our of existance with full pockets."

or

"HP continues trend of failing to learn the lesson that using the lowest bidder does not cost less afterall; recalls 70,000 substandard 3rd party batteries made in some country you will never go to buy guys with names you can't spell who in total make less than your anual salary."