TOKYO: Sony Corp. knew about the faults in the lithium-ion batteries it had provided to laptop computer makers in December 2005, but it failed to take cognizance of the problem, according to Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun.
The newspaper revealed that Sony was aware in December that a Dell notebook computer having its battery had caught fire in November. But the company then assumed that the battery could overheat and that has been on account of metal particles that had contaminated the battery contents during production. But, the company did not examine batteries it had provided to computer makers other than Dell as none of them had made any reports of problems.
The newspaper said if Sony had taken care to look at the faults in an exhaustive manner at that time, it could have avoided a costly recall and the likely losses, including to its reputation.
The company had announced Thursday last a global replacement program for the faulty batteries, after major computer makers, including Dell, Apple and Lenovo, had recalled their systems fitted with the faulty Sony batteries for replacement as these batteries posed a potential fire threat. Sony has now undertaken to replace these battery packs.
According to reports, Dell had replaced Sony's faulty batteries in 36 models of its notebook PCs, in December. This involved some 35,000 batteries. At that time Dell did not name Sony as the manufacturer-supplier of the faulty batteries.
According to the newspaper, Sony knew the cause of the fire was its own batteries as they were prone to overheating. The company corrected the production process immediately, but it examined the same type of batteries produced around the same time and did not bother to look at batteries it had produced for companies other than Dell. It also did not examine the electrical circuits and other hardware used in Dell PCs.
Sony has already agreed to pay at least some of the cost of the battery recalls. It had told investors in August the Dell and Apple recalls could cost it between 20 billion yen and 30 billion yen. It has said it will lose up to a quarter of its profits this year as a result of the recall.
Some 6.6 million laptop batteries have been recalled since mid-August.
