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Dell knew cause of battery woes last year

Leader: Dell knew the cause of the short-circuiting Sony batteries a year ago, but only recalled a small number of units at that time before the huge recall this year. Why did they wait?

Dell knew exactly what was wrong with its Sony battery packs a year ago, but thought the scope of the problem was limited. Documents obtained by the CRN under the Freedom of Information Act show that Dell reported overheating problems to the Consumer Product Safety Commission as early as last October.

At that time, however, Dell only had a limited range of resources to analyze and was under the impression that the short-circuiting problem was limited to just a few thousand units, which they recalled. The initial set of batteries failed early in the lifecycle and therefore Dell was under the impression thatonly a small group of Sony batteries were affected—those sold with Dell laptops during the month of October, 2005.

When they announced the much larger recall in August of 2006, Dell had come to the realization that many more batteries were affected than they originally thought. Dell's recall now covers over 4 million batteries worldwide, with Apple also recalling 1.8 million short-circuiting Sony batteries shortly thereafter. Sony, which had originally insisted to Dell that the problem in the manufacturing process had been taken care of, finally came out last week to say that they recognized the widespread safety concerns with their batteries. Sony is now working closely with the CPSC to formulate a plan for a very wide battery recall.

Since then, a smattering of other notebook manufacturers have recalled Sony-made batteries, including Lenovo, Toshiba, Hitachi, and Fujitsu. The total number of recalled Sony batteries continues to climb, perhaps closing in on the big 10 million before not too long.

Can Dell, who apparently knew the cause of the short-circuiting batteries long before they started making national news, be held responsible for not bringing such a widespread problem to light sooner? CPSC spokesperson Scott Wolfson said that "Dell is not the only company to ever have an expansion or learn of additional cases after a recall," adding that as long as the necessary protocol is followed, it's not abnormal to add onto it as more evidence becomes available. While Dell, Apple, and Lenovo have received some bad press over battery fires, the one bearing most of the burden from the recall is now Sony, whose stock has taken a nosedive since coming out about the recall woes.