Conspiracy theories. Explosions of Samsung phones

Results of high-speed computed tomography of a lithium-ion battery cell 15 seconds before the accident (top) and 1 second before the accident (bottom). Source: scientific article "In-operando high-speed tomography of lithium-ion batteries during thermal runaway", Nature Communications 6, Article number: 6924 (2015), doi: 10.1038 / ncomms7924 (open source)

In the second half of August, a real hysteria began in the media after cases of spontaneous combustion of Galaxy Note 7 phones.

Owners of any electrical appliance know that batteries always heat up with intense use. This is a completely natural property of batteries. At the same time, the engineer will tell you that any This device with a lithium-ion battery may explode if used under certain conditions. High-speed X-ray computed tomography and X-ray imaging of lithium-ion batteries show that an overheated lithium-ion battery creates a kind of chain reaction that can lead to an explosion. This applies not only to phones, but in general to any gadgets. The task of the designers is to implement safety measures that minimize the likelihood of fire, although it is impossible to reduce it to zero.

In practice, such explosions of Li-Ion batteries are rare, but they do occur regularly. Since 2002, there have been 43 recalls of products from the market due to defective lithium-ion batteries, according to official statistics from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The Galaxy Note 7 story is not an extraordinary story at all, but a completely ordinary technical problem.

As with the notorious suicides at Foxconn, the law of large numbers is at work here. Remember what it was like at the Foxconn factories allegedly due to poor working conditions? From January to May 2010, 10 suicides occurred at Foxconn's Taiwan plant. There was a hi that the poor Chinese are sacrificing their lives collecting iPhone and iPad equipment. They say that working 12 hours a day for $ 150 a month is unbearable, people can not stand it and commit suicide.

But it looks completely different when you look at the numbers. Namely, the Taiwanese Foxconn "factory", which is the world's largest factory for the production of computer components, worked 330,000 people... The average suicide rate among Chinese people is 14 per 100,000 people per year. Although people aged 65+ take their own lives much more often than young people, the normal youth suicide rate can therefore be estimated at about 10 per 100,000 people per year. Thus, over the past 147 days since the beginning of the year, (330,000 / 100,000) * 10 * 147/365 = 13.3 deaths should have occurred there. In reality, only 10 occurred, which is significantly below average.

That's the whole explanation.

Nevertheless, public opinion is difficult to give in to logical arguments, so Foxconn chose not to argue, but to stop the conflict, raise wages and improve working conditions, and later completely announced about.

So what's the problem? Who is behind this "massive" explosion of Samsung smartphones?

First, let's look at the general background when stories started to be thrown into the media. The very Galaxy Note 7 immediately after its release was considered the best Samsung smartphone in the history of the company. Some called him absolutely absolutely the best smartphone on the market.

And then suddenly - a story with explosions, after which the company was forced to announce a large-scale recall of smartphones, to stop production of Note 7 smartphones, to stop sales. The Note 7 brand is finally buried. The "best in the world" smartphone is leaving the market forever. A complete fiasco. An absolute victory for the "unknown" enemy.

Let's note right away that Samsung's actions were only partly forced. They can be called "overreaction", which risk managers recommend to use in order to accurately and completely stop potential risks. As in the case of Foxconn, it is better to stop fighting and give up immediately than to fix the consequences of damage for the brand for years, especially since this damage can be irreparable. If the situation is not corrected quickly and drastically, then the enemy will win not a small victory in a local battle, but a big victory in a global battle. In this case, the Samsung brand could be permanently labeled as “exploding phone maker”. Over the next few years, this may lead to a significant loss of market share, a decrease in sales, and in the longer term - even to a complete refusal of the company from the production of smartphones. To ensure that this does not happen, Korean risk managers stopped the problem by giving away only "one city", that is, only the Note 7 brand.

Purely mathematically, it is better to be guaranteed to lose a couple of billions of dollars than to get a ten percent probability of a hundred times larger losses.

In the Galaxy Note 7, the company has reduced the size of the smartphone by increasing the battery capacity. It was obvious that this was a rather risky step.

The increased risk due to the reduced volume and the law of large numbers still did not work in favor of the Korean corporation. Although 2.5 million Galaxy Note 7s have been sold, dozens of battery fires have received very intense media attention.

Apparently, Samsung has not yet figured out the exact cause of the fire in smartphones, even after installing batteries from another manufacturer in them.

Who benefits from hitting Samsung by stirring up a scandal? Just look at the world's smartphone sales statistics just before the Galaxy Note 7 launches.

What can I say, the story of the Samsung explosions came just in time.