Samsung notes that the root cause of the first fires involving the Galaxy Note 7 was a design flaw in the upper right corner of the battery, leading to short circuits in the “jelly roll” that comprises the Lithium-ion battery. However, in the replacement batch, a manufacturing issue crept in after the initial assessment of the failures, with an ultrasonic welding defect introduced in the second revision of the device pressing on the battery, and forcing a short circuit.
Samsung estimates that the final tally for the incident will exceed $5 billion in losses.
Spoiler alert, the batteries were fucked.
In addition to the announcement of the details Samsung are building a new testing lab to further prevent this happening again. Colour me crazy but I would’ve thought that testing batteries to see if they explode because of faulty parts is something a mobile phone manufacturer should’ve been doing from day one. No?
People have short memories these days but I fear Samsung are going to end up with this looming over their phones for many, many years to come.
Source: Galaxy Note 7 investigation concludes, pair of issues will cost Samsun