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by Mike Zazaian September 29, 2006 - 10:26am, 2 Comments

After recalling 340,000 batteries due to short circuit concerns last week, Toshiba has recalled an additional 830,000 Sony Laptop Batteries that were used in various notebook models.

According to the press release from Toshiba, short circuits would occur in batteries if tiny metal particles came in contact with any other part of the battery. Toshiba’s first wave of recalls, launched over a week ago, offered exchanges on 340,000 Sony batteries in which a chemical in the insulation paper could corrode circuitry and render the battery useless. At the time Toshiba vehemently denied the risk of explosive activities as seen in Sony models used in Dell and Apple notebooks:

Toshiba’s batteries are not at risk of starting a fire. There is no such hazardous or related issue.

Toshiba hasn’t made the same disclaimer on this brash of recalls, however, leaving one to believe that this strain of recalled batteries may demonstrate the same explosive tendencies as some of the others recalled.

Dell also announced a recall for an additional 100,000 batteries, raising its recall total from 4.1 to 4.2 million. The announcements from Dell and Toshiba come just a day after the Lenovo Group recalled 520,000 laptop batteries that were sold for ThinkPad R,T and X models over the past year. The latest recalls bring Sony’s recall total to approximately 7.7 million batteries, including models from Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Panasonic and Toshiba.

While Sony’s initial estimates for recall cost ranged from $170 to $255 million US, the addition of 1.8 million recalled batteries could raise that figure well over $300 million, or nearly a third of Sony’s Profits this fiscal year.

[via cnet]