Lenovo To Recall 526,000 Laptop Batteries By Sony
--Lenovo Group Ltd. (0992.HK) announced a recall of 526,000 laptop batteries manufactured by Sony Corp. (SNE), making it the latest computer maker to be hit by battery-safety problems.
The recall by Lenovo, the world's third-largest personal-computer maker, follows an incident involving a flaming laptop at Los Angeles International Airport. The recalled batteries contain the same Sony parts that were the subject of recalls in August by Dell Inc. (DELL) and Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL).
(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal Web site, WSJ.com.)
Lenovo Group Ltd.'s (0992.HK) recall is another setback for Sony Corp. (SNE), which said last month that it expected to incur costs of about $170 million to $255 million related to the Apple Computer Inc. (AAPL) and Dell Inc. (DELL) recalls.
Sony declined to comment specifically on the Lenovo recall but issued a statement saying the company will initiate a "global replacement program for certain battery packs that utilize Sony-manufactured lithium ion cells used by notebook computer manufacturers in order to address concerns related to recent over-heating incidents." The company said program details will be announced in the future.
Lenovo's recall applies to nine of International Business Machines Corp.'s (IBM) ThinkPad models sold between February 2005 and September 2006, including the T43, which is popular among business users. The recall applies to about 5% to 10% of Lenovo laptops shipped during the period, according to the company.
Lenovo acquired IBM's PC business in May 2005, so all IBM-branded ThinkPad computers are technically Lenovo products.
The safety of Lenovo's batteries was called into question in mid-September after an IBM ThinkPad caught fire at the Los Angeles International Airport. A passenger who had charged his laptop at the airport boarded his plane and then realized his computer bag was smoking. He ran off the plane onto the jetway, and the overheated notebook computer began throwing off sparks, Lenovo said.
The fire was put out with a fire extinguisher, and nobody was injured. Lenovo said it has received two other reports of overheating ThinkPads, including one in Japan and one in the Netherlands.
"Quite frankly, we still haven't reached any final conclusions about what went wrong," Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman said. "But we reacted in the interest of public safety, and that's why we're doing this recall."
Thursday's recall was issued in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.
When Lenovo's competitors first announced recalls last month, the company initially said it had no plans to issue its own recall because its battery packs were designed to "fail safely" by shutting down before extreme overheating.
Lenovo's recall would be on a smaller scale than recalls by Apple and Dell in part because Sony wasn't Lenovo's primary battery supplier. The company's largest battery-component supplier is Japan's Sanyo Electric Co. (SANYY).
Shares of Lenovo, which moved its executive offices to the U.S. from Beijing after the IBM acquisition, trade in Hong Kong.
联想将召回52.6万块笔记本电脑电池
全球第三大个人电脑生产商联想集团有限公司(Lenovo Group Ltd., 简称：联想集团)宣布召回526,000块由索尼公司(Sony Corp.)生产的笔记本电脑电池，成为最新一家受电池安全问题困扰的电脑生产商。
相关报导
? 索尼形象再受电池召回打击
? 苹果电脑将召回180万块笔记本电脑电池
? 索尼或许不会因电池召回事件受到太大影响
? 戴尔电池召回事件凸现电池技术局限
? 戴尔电池召回事件愈演愈烈
此次召回之前，在洛杉矶国际机场发生了该公司笔记本电脑着火的事故。联想此次召回的电池中所包含的索尼组件与8月份戴尔电脑(Dell Inc.)以及苹果电脑公司(Apple Computer Inc.)召回电池所使用的组件相同。
联想集团此次电池召回使索尼公司再次遭受打击。索尼在8月时表示，预计因苹果以及戴尔电脑召回电池而产生的相关成本约为1.7-2.55亿美元。戴尔电脑今年8月的召回涉及410万台使用索尼锂电池的笔记本电脑，这也是迄今为止最大规模的消费类电子产品召回。之后，苹果召回180万台笔记本电脑以更换其中同一类型的索尼电池。联想称，索尼将分担此次召回中更换电池的费用，预计联想负担的成本将很少。
一位索尼代表表示，公司将支持联想的召回行动。另外索尼还发表声明称，为了回应外界对电池过热事件的关注，该公司将启动一个全球电池更换项目，对笔记本电脑生产商使用的某些索尼锂电池进行更换。这个更换项目可能不仅仅限于联想集团的产品，但是索尼公司没有公布具体细节。
联想集团此次召回的是2005年2月以来售出的9款IBM ThinkPad机型，其中包括备受商务用户青睐的T43。据联想公司称，此次召回的产品数量占联想该时期笔记本电脑发货量的5%-10%。联想集团于2005年5月收购了国际商业机器公司(International Business Machines Corp., IBM)的个人电脑业务，因此所有IBM品牌的ThinkPad电脑从法律上讲均属于联想的产品。
事实上，在一款IBM ThinkPad笔记本电脑9月中旬在洛杉矶机场发生着火事故之后，联想笔记本电脑电池的安全性就受到了质疑。联想称，一位乘客曾在机场为笔记本电脑充电，在他登机之后发现自己的电脑包在冒烟。他迅速跑下飞机，而过热的笔记本电脑此时开始冒出火花。
火很快被扑灭，没有人员受伤。联想称，他们还收到了另外两起ThinkPad电脑出现过热现象的报告，分别发生在日本和荷兰。
“坦白讲，我们尚未对事故的原因得出最终的结论，”联想发言人雷?戈尔曼(Ray Gorman)说。“但是我们的应对措施是出于公共安全的考虑，这也是此次召回的原因。”
周四的召回是联想集团与美国消费品安全委员会(U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission)联合发布的。
当联想的竞争对手们在8月首次宣布召回时，它最初还表示还没有召回的计划，因为根据设计，该公司的电池组在电脑发生极度过热之前会通过自动关闭实现“安全断电”。
Jane Spencer
