Sony begins Vaio battery recall
By Tony Smith
17th October 2006 10:49 GMT
Sony has announced details of the Vaio laptop battery recall it
admitted last month it was going to initiate. And Toshiba has
indicated it may sue the Japanese giant in order to gain recompense
for any damage it alleges may have been done to its brand by its
own battery recall.
Sony's Vaio division announced on 29 September it was planning to
recall batteries fitted into some of its notebook computers. At the
time, it said it was pondering whether it would participate in the
broader battery recall programme put in place independently by
Sony's battery manufacturing operation.
Sony Japan today asked anyone who owns a VGP-BPS2B or
VGP-BPS3A battery pack to return the unit to the company.
Some have been sold on their own, others were bundled with a
variety of Vaio notebooks. The recall only applies to certain
battery-pack serial numbers, Sony said.
Sony Japan said it expects to replace
around 90,000 batteries in the Asia Pacific region. Other Sony
subsidiaries have yet to announce recalls of their own, but
Japanese newspaper the Nihon Keizai Shimbun today put the total at
300,000 Vaio batteries worldwide.
The claim comes a day after Toshiba said it may take Sony to court
to seek compensation for the lost business and damage to its brand
it alleges it has sustained since it issued an 830,000-unit recall
last month.
