back to article HP issues annual exploding battery recall

HP came thiiis close to getting out of the month without its traditional May laptop-battery recall – but it didn't quite make it. HP batteries under recall Bad batteries! Bad! Bad! (click to enlarge) The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has announced that HP is recalling another 162,600 lithium-ion batteries that …

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  1. Asgard
    Flame

    These dates fit the US fiscal quarterly yearly reports

    Since you mentioned “annual exploding battery recall”, I did some brief checking to see if there is a pattern to all the dates?. Here's the battery recall dates:

    October 14th, 2005

    April 20th, 2006

    October 30, 2008

    15th May 2009

    24th May 2010

    31st May 2011

    All these dates fit with releasing these bad news stories after news of HP's fiscal Quarter yearly points have passed. For example, The fiscal year (in US) for 2011 is as follows:

    * 1st Quarter: October 1, 2010 - December 31, 2010

    * 2nd Quarter: January 1, 2011 - March 31, 2011

    * 3rd Quarter: April 1, 2011 - June 30, 2011

    * 4th Quarter: July 1, 2011 - September 30, 2011

    So 4 of the dates are right after the 3rd quarter is reached and 2 are after the 1st quarter has been reached. That way the bad news has the longest possible time to die away before the next financial quarter news is reported. (I guess the April news is more important, so they wait an extra few weeks after each April quarterly news, before then releasing these bad news stories).

    As for the safety of these batteries whilst HP wait to get a financial quarter to pass before telling customers the batteries need to be recalled on safety grounds ... Well what is a few customers safety compared with keeping the HP company share price safe and less affected.

    It shows these amoral self-interested Narcissistic corporate bastards at HP are more interested in putting their share price first over customer safety whilst they wait for a quarter. A battery fire, if it burned unattended, could cause a house fire and even worse, such a fire could even risk killing the customer and their family as well as obviously destroying their home, but hey, as long as the HP share price is safe and less affected, that's the main thing. :(

    These dates show the Narcissistic people in HP are not thinking about customer safety first, they are thinking about themselves first, which is literally Narcissistic contempt for their customers. Flame icon for HP. Its also more than about time they sorted this mess out once and for all, before more harm is caused by them.

    1. It wasnt me
      Thumb Down

      What complete nonsense.

      How is the 31st May "right after" Q2 results, giving them "longest possible time to die away before the next financial quarter news is reported"? Its closer to the end of the quarter. You're seeing a pattern where there just simply isn't one, and using the pattern to justify calling them "amoral self-interested Narcissistic corporate bastards".

      Take your straw man elsewhere.

      Using your own figures for US fiscal reporting, these dates show absolutely nothing at all.

      1. Asgard
        WTF?

        What?

        @"Using your own figures for US fiscal reporting"

        Not my own figures. Look it up anywhere *For the US*. Here's a simple link but you can see it anywhere.

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_year#United_States

        Also however you label each quarter its still a quarter of a year. So it doesn't matter if a jurisdiction calls April, May, and June the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or 4th quarter, its still a financial quarter. Also April & October are a half year apart however you look at it.

        So its you who is seeking to misrepresent me with your straw man argument.

        A person would have to be profoundly naive to fail to see corporations seek to do damager limitation on bad news stories, but evidently you are.

        1. Nigel 11
          FAIL

          Spin damage

          And what will managing the bad news end up costing HP (or any other large corporation) if delaying the recall results in a major disaster caused by the defective product? How much extra when the claimants prove that the corporation knew of the danger but did not immediately warn?

          The scenario that scares me most is a 787 going down because of a cabin fire started by an exploding battery.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      Check your facts before you rant

      Hi Asgard

      HP's financial year commences November 1st and so they report their quarterly results in the first week or so of November, February, May and August.

      But hey, don't let reality get in the way of your excellent conspiracy theory

      All the Best from The Gunman on the Grassy Knoll

  2. Head
    Trollface

    Hmmm

    Dell's got nothing on these guys!!

  3. Geraint Williams
    Holmes

    Post hoc ergo propter hoc

    @Asgard While I am all for sticking it to the man - it could also be the case that their product review cycle runs quarterly.

    1. Asgard
      WTF?

      HP's amoral Narcissistic thinking

      @Geraint Williams: "product review cycle runs quarterly"

      What absolute rubbish. What for the safety of their batteries?! Customers are the ones telling HP about the faulty batteries and customers don't wait for a quarter and its their complaints also backed up by (in HP's press release own words) "In cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission" ... I.e. HP were told of the battery faults.

      Also what responsible company would wait for a quarterly product review on product safety?! ... No company would wait on the grounds of safety but a company would wait on the grounds of self-interest, if they thought they could get away with it.

      Also my aim isn't to "sticking it to the man" (that is by the way, a Straw Man argument) ... my aim is to highlight the amoral self-interested Narcissistic corporate bastards who are very evidently behind the decision making processes at HP (as with many corporations) and that is the real problem that the law needs to deal with, to hold these amoral Narcissists legally responsible should their intentional delays risk someone's life and property ... as it should be. They should be held accountable if they endanger peoples lives, which is what they have done here.

      Try Geraint Williams, seeing the documentary, The Corporation which shows this amoral Narcissistic thinking found in so many corporations. HP's actions in this news are perfect examples of it.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation

  4. Michael Kean
    Happy

    Do it with software??

    Hmm :)

    Since most computers can now read the details of the battery themselves, why don't they just have a button that asks the ACPI system what the battery serial is, and initiate the recall that way? Perhaps serial numbers aren't presented there, in which case they should consider adding it in future.

  5. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    Next year.....

    ......we get the HP 2012 Overture.

    I'm looking forward to that.

    Da, da, da, da ,da, da, da, da <BOOM>

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Context required

    ...I mean, is this normal? Don't all Manufacturers have battery recalls, every now and then? And how many batteries per laptop sold are we talking about? Are HP the worst?

    Inquiring minds must know...if only to have yet another excuse to not buy HP.

    Sherlock - because he had an inquiring mind.

  7. John F***ing Stepp

    suckage creep.

    HP used to make good laptops (and really poor desktops but whatever.)

    My laptop battery (10 years old) will still give me an hour under Linux, while other laptop manufacturing a**holes are locking down usage after one year$*.

    Still, it is HP and I believe that they might well have swallowed a company that is eating them from inside; how does that Compaq taste again?

    Compaq used to be known for suckage, the only thing they had over HP was that they didn't do printers so.

    In my opinion this is a clear case of suckage creep.

    $*Farmer in the what now?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Pint

    Not enough coffee and too early for beer

    http://www.cpsc.gov/about/faq.html

    small staff - maybe they work on a quarterly cycle.

    On the issue of how quick a safety concern is processed in a big bad corporation.

    Well

    1) It first has to get to the right person.

    2) It then has to be verified - guess what corporations do not just get fully detailed descriptions of genuine problems - SNR is not very good.

    a) Is it PEBKAC - customer does something stupid and hurts themselves.

    b) Try and replicate it - not easy if you don't have full details, can take a while

    c) If you can replicate - whats the root cause

    d) Is it a one off?

    3) Collate data and issue a recall if necessary

    Of course for some of the genius commentators here - they can do all of the above in 5 minutes and have the recall out the same day - for the rest of us it takes time. Best way to manage that is, oh maybe a periodic process.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    Sounds familiar..

    "All of the suspect batteries, by the way, were manufactured in China."

    for the absloute cheapest price HP could possibly get them for...

    You pay peanuts you get fucking monkeys.

    A turd with a HP sticker is still a turd...

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