In the shadow of Dell"s fire-breathing battery concerns that lead that company to call in 4.1 million laptops, and Apple"s recent decision to call in MacBook Pros due to substandard batteries, companies are to meet to discuss standards for the manufacture of lithium ion batteries.
Apple, Dell, and Lenovo will gather next month in San Jose, California for a summit meeting. According to AppleInsider, the companies will discuss standards for the manufacture of lithium ion batteries for portable and handheld electronics.
All three are part of the OEM Critical Components Committee of the IPC-Association Connecting Electronics Industries, an organisation of some 2,400 companies that represent all facets of the electronic interconnection industry.
John Grosso, chairman of the IPC OEM Critical Components Committee and director of supplier engineering and quality at Dell said the IPC Committee will identify any current standards related to lithium ion batteries with the goal of standardising design, performance and safety requirements.
"While the Committee had identified lithium ion batteries as the next product for standardisation, we are going to accelerate our activities now," said Grosso.
Faulty, potentially harmful batteries have become a hot topic in recent weeks with Dell recalling millions of batteries, the largest product recall in history, earlier this month. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission has reviewed the batteries in Apple"s 15-inch MacBook Pro notebooks and says they don"t pose a safety threat.