Toshiba expands battery recall

The battery part number begins with G71C e.g. (G71C*******). The battery serial number begins with one or two letters and ends with three letters e.g. (A********ABC). You may find the battery part number and battery serial number on the main battery label and/or small labels located on the side of the battery pack. Alternatively, you can download a battery checking utility here.

This is an expansion of last November’s recall and affects additional batteries made by Panasonic. The list of models (below) affected is extensive – hundreds of models and hundreds of thousands of notebooks. Toshiba has received five reports of battery packs overheating, but no injuries have been reported. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has declared the battery a fire hazard and consumers have been advised disconnect the battery immediately.

Toshiba joins HP (iTWire article here), Dell, Panasonic, Fujitsu, Lenovo and Sony (at least) in recalling potentially faulty batteries. If you have any of these notebook brand check its recall site. These makers, like Samsung and its Note7, did not design the battery but asked the battery maker to develop a suitable mAh battery in a package to suit the device.

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Opinion

Why is this happening now?

Lithium-ion contains two highly combustible materials. Usually mishandling e.g. dropping can cause the anode (fuel) and cathode (oxidiser) to touch and ignite, or over-charging (builds up gas inside the sealed unit and causes expansion/contraction that over time can lead to the breakdown of the insulation between anode and cathode), or design issues that don’t stop thermal runaway (a polite word for exploding).

In the case of notebooks, it appears the main issue is overcharging brought on by their increasing use as replacements for desktops. Many notebooks are plugged in all the time. This calls for new standards for chargers and charge circuitry.

While the current statistical failure rate across all lithium-ion batteries under four years old is one in every 40 million cells, the IT industry is prepared to accept much higher rates – often cited as <%. Samsung’s Note7 failure rate was about 0.003% and many smartphone OEMs stated that it was too low for a recall. However, who knows what the eventual percentage would have been without a recall?

List of models.

Note Production from date is in dd/yy/mm format.