The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission or CPSC Thursday announced a voluntary recall of about 35,000 lithium-Ion batteries manufactured by Sony Energy Devices Corp., a unit of Sony Corp. (SNE), due to a fire and burn hazard. These batteries were used in Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Toshiba (TOSBF.PK) and Dell (DELL) notebook computers.
The CPSC said these batteries can overheat, posing a fire and burn hazard to consumers. There have been 19 reports of the batteries overheating, including 17 reports of flames/fire with 10 resulting in minor property damage. Two consumers experienced minor burns. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately, the agency said.
Consumers have been asked to remove the recalled battery from their notebook computer, and contact their computer manufacturer to determine if their battery is included in the recall and to request a free replacement battery.
Computers with the recalled batteries, manufactured in Japan, were sold directly by Hewlett-Packard, Toshiba and Dell for between $700 and $3000. The batteries were also sold separately for $100-$160.
Hewlett-Packard sold the batteries from December 2004 through June 2006, while Toshiba sold from April 2005 to October 2005. Dell shipped the batteries between November 2004 and November 2005.
SNE closed Thursday's regular trade at $22.65, up $1.52 or 7.19%, on 1.53 million shares.
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