S.Korea is Strengthening Battery Bafety Rules

South Korea said, it will support lithium-ion battery safety requirements and conduct regular inspections to evade recurrences of fires which forced Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to withdraw its premium Galaxy Note 7 handsets.
Manufacturers of lithium-ion batteries, usually used in portable devices, would be subjected to better oversight and regular inspections, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said in a report. Devices using lithium-ion batteries also would be imperiled to more regular safety tests, it added.
“We examine that the manufacturing shares the sight that making efforts to confirm safety are equally as critical as emergent new products through technological innovation,” Vice Minister Jeong Marn-ki said in the declaration.
Samsung was compulsory to scrap the near-$900 Note 7 smartphones in October after some of the devices caught fire due to defective batteries, wiping out about $5.4 billion in working profit over three quarters.
Samsung and independent investigators said in that unlike battery problems from two suppliers – Amperex Technology Ltd and Samsung SDI Co Ltd -caused some Note 7s to combust.
A separate probe by the Korea Testing Laboratory also create no other cause for the Note 7 fires other than a grouping of manufacturing and design faults with the batteries, the trade ministry added.
The government also thought it would monitor Samsung’s efforts to advance battery safety, such as x-ray testing and stricter standards through the design process.
It would strengthen recall-related necessities by broadening the types of serious product defects that manufacturers should boom to the government, and seek legal changes to permit the government to caution consumers to stop using certain products even if they had not been educed.