Nokia hot to make a battery recall

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Doug Krizner: Nokia has begun the biggest voluntary consumer-electronics recall. It’s offering to replace 46 million cell phone batteries because of cases of overheating. Lisa Napoli looks at what it’ll cost the cell phone giant.

Lisa Napoli: The batteries in question are used in over 30 different cell phone models.

Analyst Avi Greengart of Current Analysis says that’ll probably cost Nokia:

Avi Greengart: My guess would be in the tens of millions of dollars.

By comparison, that laptop battery recall last year by Sony cost the company around 418 million bucks.

Greengart says Nokia isn’t likely to have to eat these recall costs. He says Matsushita, the maker of the batteries, will. All these incidents point out how testy battery technology can be.

Greengart: It’s complicated and delicate. You know, we want to be able to use our phones in the sweltering heat in Manhattan and we want to use them in the freezing cold in Chicago in mid-winter.

Greengart says safety concerns over batteries is why Toyota last week decided to slow down its plans for plug-in hybrids.

In Los Angeles, I’m Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.