In a rush to beat out the latest iPhone, Samsung rolled out its Galaxy Note7 with one minor flaw: The battery. I’d hate to be the engineer who had to explain that one to company vice chairman and heir apparent Lee Jae-yong: “You see, sir, well, it’s the battery. No big deal. It just, on occasion, catches fire. I mean, it’s not like our exploding washing machines!” Without panicking, Samsung then issued replacements for those potentially flammable phones. But those replacements also had the same problem—the problem of burning away in your handbag (or God forbid in your pants). Now it’s time to panic.
“We are working with relevant regulatory bodies to investigate the recently reported cases involving the Galaxy Note7,” reads the official statement. “Because consumers’ safety remains our top priority, Samsung will ask all carrier and retail partners globally to stop sales and exchanges of the Galaxy Note7 while the investigation is taking place.”
That investigation will center around the battery—but it’s not a matter of simply replacing it. As Hayley Tsukayama explained in the Washington Post, the components come from different manufacturers:
So there’s not much else the company could do at this point, what with the stock diving—just yesterday shares dropped 17.5 percent, erasing $17 billion of Samsung’s worth. Image-wise, the GalaxyNote7 is becoming the Pinto of our time.
As Ben Wojdyla recalled in Popular Mechanics:
We know the rest—and how the problem was magnified by popular culture. (Remember this scene from Top Secret?) Samsung has entered its rough patch—and just as the 48-year-old Lee Jae-yong takes the reins. Apple will go after these customers who (ahem) got burned. And so will Google with its new Pixel. On the bright side, at least the Galaxy Note7 wasn’t outright killing people whenever they answered it.
