CPSC Chairman Uses Note7 Report as Case for Improved Battery Safety Standards

Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Elliot Kaye praised results of the Samsung Note7 recall, citing a 97 percent (“and counting”) consumer response rate, while urging the 2-plus percent of outstanding customers to “do the right thing,” in an email update Tuesday. Samsung has been "accountable in taking steps to drive up the recall response rate and keeps pushing, as they should, for every one of the recalled [phones] to be returned,” said Kaye, urging the industry to “modernize and improve the safety standards for lithium-ion batteries in consumer electronics and also stay ahead of new power sources that will inevitably come along and replace these.” Consumers “expect more power from a smaller battery that charges faster and discharges more slowly,” said Kaye, noting companies are “under a lot of pressure to meet this performance demand.” CPSC and Samsung are working with the wireless industry, battery makers and electrical engineers “to take a fresh look at the voluntary standard for lithium-ion batteries in smartphones,” Kaye said. “The overheating is a fire risk" and defective batteries are a serious issue, he said, "so I urge the remaining Note7 owners who are holding out to do the right thing and get a full refund or a new phone." After hoverboard and smartphone battery recalls, CPSC added to its operating plan a project for its technical staff to assess high-density battery technology, innovations in the marketplace, gaps in safety standards, and the research and regulatory activities in other countries, he said. “Beyond an excellent recall response rate, we need more good to come out of the Note7 recalls and I believe Samsung agrees." At a minimum, he said, industry needs to learn from the experience "and improve consumer safety by putting more safeguards in place during the design and manufacturing stages to ensure that technologies run by lithium-ion batteries deliver their benefits without the serious safety risks.”