Lenovo to Recall Some 200,000 Laptop Batteries

Computer maker Lenovo Group announced Thursday it will be voluntarily recalling around 200,000 ThinkPad battery backs. The batteries contain faulty Sanyo Electronic lithium-ion batteries. According to Lenovo, the batteries were sold along with the ThinkPad R, T and Z series of notebooks, which were sold between November 2005 and February 2007. Roughly 100,000 of these computers were sold in the United States during that time, with another 105,000 estimated sales around the world.

The recall is targeting notebooks which were sold with the 9-cell, extended life battery packs. If struck with "significant force," a Lenovo spokesman said, the battery pack may be prone to overheating and - in some instances - may catch fire.

According to the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC), which which Lenovo is working on the recall, Lenovo has received four reports of overheated batteries damaging the computer. There were also property damage reports, although minor, along with a "minor" eye injury from one user.

"Our number one priority is safety," says Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman. "We have identified the problema nd we aer working right now to correct that problem."

Lenovo, which acquired the ThinkPad brand in 2005 with the purchase of IBM's Personal Computing Division, said the problem was not due to any battery cell defect. Since the problem came to light, Lenovo and Sanyo have begun redesigning a re-enforced plastic casing for the battery back.

In their statement, Lenovo urged customers to order a free replacement pack and to stop using the potentially dangerous pack immediately.

This recall is not related to the much larger recall from last August. In that case, Dell and Lenovo combined recalled more than 4 million notebooks which contained faulty Sony lithium-ion battery packs. In that case, the battery cell itself was the problem, as a short circuit inside the cell could occur.

The particular models affected in today's announced recall are:

R60, R60e, T60, T50p, Z60m, Z61e, Z61m and the Z61p. The faulty battery packs will contain the following identification number: FRU P/N 92P1131.

To visit the company's dedicated battery recall web page, visit: www.lenovo.com/batteryprogram

For more info on the recall, see here: www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07118.html

Sources:

www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2099669,00.asp
www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,255647,00.html
www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml07/07118.html
www.lenovo.com/batteryprogram