Apple’s Notebook Battery Recall

Many of you have probably already seen that Apple announced a battery recall for some of its notebook batteries. I wanted to take a moment to commend Apple for taking this action to protect customers.

Our recall is proceeding well, based on the positive feedback we’re receiving from our customers worldwide. In the midst of all the media attention on this topic, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of the facts. Our recall represents just over 15% of the 24.9 million batteries we shipped over a more than two-year period. If you consider that notebooks purchased before April 2004 are still clearly in use, then the fraction of our customers impacted by this recall gets even smaller. There were six confirmed incidents in the U.S. that helped us determine the root causes and scope of the recall. The small number of incidents reflects the reality that lithium-ion battery technology is safe and reliable; where we saw even the slightest risk to our customers, we took this proactive action to ensure their confidence in our products.

The Dell team remains focused on getting updated batteries into the hands of affected customers as quickly as we can. The first replacements shipped within the first full day of our recall and the shipments continue to ramp up dramatically. Thank you for your support and patience as we work through this challenge. I hope we’ve earned your trust.

You can expect further battery-related posts from Lionel and others on the Direct2Dell team. Keep the feedback coming.

About the Author: Alex Gruzen