Just one of a series
A burning laptop that frightened passengers at Los Angeles International Airport over the weekend was a ThinkPad, Lenovo confirmed on Wednesday, and that laptop ships with Sony’s battery technology.
The incident, described by a poster at the website Something Awful, involved a passenger running back up the jetway as a plane was boarding with a smoking laptop that eventually caught fire. Lenovo dispatched a team of investigators to Los Angeles within 12 hours of the incident, and confirmed the laptop was a ThinkPad T43, said a company spokesman.
At the time of the Apple and Dell recalls, Lenovo took great pains to distance itself from its competitors, saying it uses a different charging voltage in its laptops and has a different design for its battery casing.
Burn baby, burn!
related link:
Dell and Sony knew of the problem 10 months ago and did nothing
Update: Lenovo, IBM recall 526,000 Sony notebook batteries
Update: Toshiba and Fujitsu recall 800,000 plus laptop batteries.
Pretty soon, it will make more sense to report on who isn’t recalling Sony betteries.
Checking up on the T43, I guess Eideard should have included a reference to the Gizmodo review of this notebook. The reviewer bought the specific model (14.1″ screen) because of increased battery life. 🙂
I suspect that pretty soon you will not be able to take a laptop with a battery in it on any flight, and you will have to get a new battery at your destination if you want to use your laptop the way that it was intended.
It is the design of the batteries that is wrong.. theoretically they can explode even if they are just sitting on the table, not even inserted in a laptop. A membrane separating two chemicals deteriorates, causing the chemicals to come in contact with each other, and the result is a chemical fire.
I can see a new use for the $100 laptop… rentals at airports. You get to your destination, rent or buy a cheap laptop, insert a memory card that contains the stuff that you need for your business trip, and you are all set. That and the return of the ‘Internet Cafe’.
And the Vaio’s played on…………………Sony must save its best battery technology for its own Vaio, or do they get Vaio batteries somewhere else??? Anyway, me and my Vaio are staying cool, lol!
why have i not seen any stories on vaio’s with battery problems?
Sony does what all Japanese companies do best. Save the best products for themselves and farm out the crap to the rest.
Seeing as I’m typing this on my Lenovo / Thinkpad T43 with the 14.1 ” screen, I’m getting a little antsy…
I’m just glad the battery in my laptop is not made by Sony.
Imagine if this had been in checked baggage in the cargo hold of the aircraft? We could have had another ValueJet incident.
Burn Sony, Burn!
On #2, if deterioration of the barrier material is the culprit, this doesn’t sound good for lithium based parts in general. In addition to laptops, there must be millions of lithium cell phone batteries orphaned in sock drawers, attics and garages. Anyone know if the chemical’s volatility when mixed dissipates over time, to where it is no longer a risk? Or did Sony just spec sub-standard materials or assemblies for the barrier? In any case, it looks like it is time for somebody to start making Kevlar and thermal barrier lap coasters for folks who need to use their Mrs. O’Lithium’s laptops, actually on their laps.
I for one wouldn’t mind banishing all electronics as carry-on luggage – I need an excuse to get away from my leashes. But I only have a T41; rats.
One of the things globalization should have gotten us away from is the kind of problems this single sourcing mentality is causing (ala Sony batteries or memory manufacturing or whatever). Why is this kinda stuff happening at all?
Sony has alot of image rebuilding to do, eh?
So this is the reason for the PS3 delays.
#2 and #9
It doesn’t appear to be as simple as two chemicals coming in contact with each other. In the case of these Sony batteries, small metal particles that had contaminated the Lithium-Ion battery cells caused an internal short. This caused the cell to overheat and in some cases, catch fire. It appears to be an unusual manufacturing defect more than an inherent weakness of Li batteries.
See:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/18/HNdellsonybattery_1.html
By the way, Sony said it is investigating a report from the U.S. that a 4-year old Sony Vaio computer burst into flames while charging.
See:
http://www.infoworld.com/article/06/08/24/HNqantascautions_1.html?s=feature
Steve
How to make Swedish meatballs.
To bad SPINACH makes a bad battery, least ya could eat it once it cooks.
Corporate email just came in, today, at my company regarding the Thinkpad battery recall – and how to turn them in to the IT department..
Comment by Named — “Sony does what all Japanese companies do best. Save the best products for themselves and farm out the crap to the rest.”
Tell me, what company from which country wouldn’t do that? Wouldn’t it be a little stupid to supply your competitors with your best products?
I thought the problem of lithium cells over-heating and burning was solved years ago…what happened?