WEBVTT - Big Recalls: When Tech Goes Wrong 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.640 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.680 --> 0:00:18.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.560 --> 0:00:22.320 tech are you? So recently I came across a headline 0:00:22.400 --> 0:00:26.079 in the Register that read, and that's three recalls for 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:29.960 Tesla cybertruck in as many months. And from that headline 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.040 I infer the intent behind the wording is to say 0:00:33.080 --> 0:00:37.920 the Tesla Cybertruck, even with all its numerous delays, was 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.320 still rushed off to consumers without going through a thorough 0:00:41.440 --> 0:00:45.600 quality control process. Worse that, these issues are ones that 0:00:45.640 --> 0:00:48.360 are bad enough to necessitate a recall, in which a 0:00:48.400 --> 0:00:52.680 company requests that customers return purchase products due to some 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.200 flaw in the product itself, a flaw that could potentially 0:00:56.440 --> 0:00:59.920 lead to harm. Are the very least legal liability for 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:02.920 the company. And we'll talk about the specific recalls for 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.240 the cyber truck toward the end of this episode, but 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:10.640 in the meantime, I thought it might be interesting to 0:01:10.680 --> 0:01:14.840 talk about some major recalls in tech history. Now. A 0:01:14.920 --> 0:01:18.240 lot of them have to do with the automotive industry, 0:01:18.560 --> 0:01:21.800 and that makes a lot of sense vehicles are potentially 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.160 extremely dangerous, right. I mean both to the people who 0:01:25.200 --> 0:01:27.640 are inside the vehicles and especially to the people who 0:01:27.640 --> 0:01:30.880 are outside of them. Flaws and such in a vehicle 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:34.959 can contribute to catastrophic scenarios, and this has made far 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.880 more complicated because it's not like every car is made 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.360 from the wheels up by a single manufacturer, right. A 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.000 lot of components are coming from different suppliers. So it 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.320 could be that the automaker is doing absolutely everything right, 0:01:51.400 --> 0:01:54.280 but a component that they're getting from a supplier has 0:01:54.400 --> 0:01:57.200 a flaw in it, and that's enough to create a 0:01:57.280 --> 0:02:01.520 dangerous situation. Of course, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:05.080 studied car accidents and found that the overwhelming majority of 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:09.480 them result from driver error. Only a tiny percentage of 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:13.960 accidents that the NHTSA reported on were actually caused by 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:19.359 vehicular problems. But if the problem could possibly lead to harm, 0:02:19.600 --> 0:02:22.920 it only makes sense to fix the problem. Right. We 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:26.720 can't fix drivers necessarily, we can't make them all much 0:02:26.760 --> 0:02:30.080 more responsible and careful, but what we can do is 0:02:30.639 --> 0:02:35.440 identify and eliminate issues that can lead to dangerous situations 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.359 on the road. So we're going to learn about some 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:41.680 product recalls and how they all played out. And the 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.800 very first one I'd like to cover comes from the 0:02:44.840 --> 0:02:48.239 same decade that I come from, the nineteen seventies, the 0:02:48.320 --> 0:02:50.920 nineteen hundreds. Boy, I come from the nineteen hundreds. That 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:56.160 feels weird anyway. The product is the Little Wonder TV antenna, 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.600 which was a product that was manufactured by a company 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.959 called the Akli Trick Corporation out of Brooklyn, New York. Now, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.919 for those of y'all who have never had a TV antenna, 0:03:07.400 --> 0:03:11.640 let me explain, before cable and before satellite television, and 0:03:11.840 --> 0:03:17.680 before internet delivered television programming, there was over the air broadcasting, 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.919 and actually there still is. I'm being a little facetious 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.959 here because some of y'all might take advantage of over 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:26.440 the air antennas to this day. I don't mean to 0:03:26.480 --> 0:03:29.240 paint everyone with the same broad brush. Even in the 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:32.280 twenty first century, there are regions where cable TV isn't 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:35.920 available and satellite reception could be terrible due to stuff like, 0:03:36.000 --> 0:03:37.960 you know, mountains and trees and that kind of thing. 0:03:37.960 --> 0:03:40.840 If you don't have a clear view of the sky, 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:44.760 then you can't really pick up satellite signals. So sometimes 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:47.640 over the air broadcast is how you get your your 0:03:47.760 --> 0:03:52.400 entertainment with over the air broadcasting. A television broadcaster beams 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:56.559 TV signals via radio waves. It's part of the radio spectrum, 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.920 and the television station uses a big, old transmitter antenna 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.400 to blast out those waves, and they travel outward in 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.400 all directions, and they get progressively weaker as they travel outward. 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.080 If you are close enough to pick up the signal 0:04:10.120 --> 0:04:14.680 while it's still of decent enough strength, then your receptor 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:20.560 antenna you're receiving antenna will collect those radio waves and 0:04:20.600 --> 0:04:24.760 convert them into an electrical signal, and your television processes 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.520 this electrical signal and you can watch your programs, you 0:04:28.520 --> 0:04:31.200 can watch your stories. For some reason, I'm imagining it's 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:33.480 more commendy, and I might just be channeling my own 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:36.920 childhood at this point, because I certainly had televisions that 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:40.560 relied on over the air broadcasts for quite some time. 0:04:40.560 --> 0:04:43.880 I didn't get cable till the eighties. Anyway, the little 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:47.919 wonder TV antenna would draw power from an electrical outlet 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:52.280 in the home in order to amplify the incoming radio 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.200 signals that were going to the television. Now, not all 0:04:55.320 --> 0:05:00.400 television antennas do this. Many antennas are non amplified. You 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.839 just connect them to your TV and that's it. But 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:06.000 the whole concept behind amplification is that you take an 0:05:06.000 --> 0:05:09.479 incoming week signal and through the use of an electrical current, 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:14.280 you boost that into a much stronger signal. But amplification 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:16.760 is a tricky thing. It's a tricky thing for me 0:05:16.839 --> 0:05:18.760 to say, I'm recording this at the end of the 0:05:18.839 --> 0:05:22.920 day rather than at the beginning, so I'm tripping over myself. 0:05:22.920 --> 0:05:27.360 But amplification can be tricky because with television antennas, you're 0:05:27.400 --> 0:05:30.320 amplifying everything that's coming in. You know, that doesn't just 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:34.239 include the signal you want. Right Like you've tuned your 0:05:34.480 --> 0:05:37.560 television to a specific channel, your antenna is picking up 0:05:37.600 --> 0:05:41.320 all the different frequencies and there can be noise that's 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.200 included in the same frequency band as the channel that 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:47.120 you're tuning to. And for that reason, a lot of 0:05:47.160 --> 0:05:50.960 resources actually suggest that if you do depend upon an 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:54.760 over the air antenna to get your television programming, that 0:05:54.839 --> 0:05:59.239 you first try it in a non amplified capacity before 0:05:59.279 --> 0:06:02.360 switching it to an amplified version, because it just might 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.920 be that the non amplified approach works better for you, 0:06:05.920 --> 0:06:08.840 you know, otherwise you might just end up amplifying all 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:12.080 the noise, and yeah, the TV signal stronger, but so 0:06:12.200 --> 0:06:15.040 is everything else, and so you still can't see anything anyway. 0:06:15.279 --> 0:06:19.000 In some places, an amplifier is necessary to boost a 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:22.400 signal to great enough strength to make TV programming watchable. 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:25.880 So here we have the Little Wonder TV antenna and 0:06:25.920 --> 0:06:29.960 it's plugged into the wall. So what necessitated the product 0:06:30.000 --> 0:06:35.160 recall in nineteen seventy three, Well, the US Consumer Product 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.320 Safety Commission, which we will mention multiple times in this episode, 0:06:39.480 --> 0:06:44.279 found that the Little Wonder TV antenna lacked a safety 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.400 device that would isolate the electrical current from the home 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.400 outlet where it was plugged in to the antenna itself, 0:06:51.880 --> 0:06:55.479 which meant that it was possible through normal operation of 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:57.520 the antenna. Like let's say that you were like, oh, 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:59.640 I need to move the bunny ears so I can 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.719 get a better signal, you could actually get an electrical shock. 0:07:02.880 --> 0:07:08.000 You could even suffer electrocution. Electrocution is death through an 0:07:08.080 --> 0:07:12.760 electrical shock, and that's obviously a severe health hazard. So 0:07:12.840 --> 0:07:17.880 the CPSC urged the Federal Trade Commission or FTC to 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:21.880 investigate Ak Electric Corporation, alleging that the company had used 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:27.520 quote misleading and possibly fraudulent advertising end quote for their product, 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.560 and their recommendation was for people who had bought this 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:34.840 thing to unplug the antenna from the wall first of all, 0:07:35.240 --> 0:07:38.559 then to disconnect the antenna from their television, then to 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.600 toss the antenna in the trash. Pretty phenomenal. Now going 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.720 from an early example to a much more recent one, 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.040 A famous recall that happened less than a decade ago 0:07:50.520 --> 0:07:55.080 was the Samsung Galaxy Note seven fablet. Do you remember fablets? 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:58.320 We don't use that word much anymore, but those are 0:07:58.360 --> 0:08:00.920 like the very large smart phone somehow, like you know, 0:08:01.000 --> 0:08:03.200 kind of like a the love child between a phone 0:08:03.200 --> 0:08:06.320 and a tablet. And this was a doozy of a recall, 0:08:06.360 --> 0:08:08.480 and I'm sure a lot of you actually remember when 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:11.640 this happened. It wasn't that long ago. The problem quickly 0:08:11.680 --> 0:08:14.320 reached a point where here in the United States, the 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:18.360 TSA and the Department of Transportation, as well as airlines 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.040 all around the world, would begin to deny passengers entry 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:26.320 onto a plane if they were carrying a Galaxy Note seven. 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:31.280 The problems would lead to an incredibly expensive recall. They 0:08:31.400 --> 0:08:35.199 even played a small part in the impeachment of South 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:41.000 Korea's president. So what the heck happened? Well, first, Samsung 0:08:41.080 --> 0:08:45.000 was pushing the Note seven pretty darn hart. The company 0:08:45.040 --> 0:08:48.440 had a couple of Android smartphone flagship lines. There was 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:52.560 the Galaxy S series, then you had the higher end, 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:58.440 larger Galaxy Note series, And like a lot of smartphone manufacturers, 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:03.360 Samsung designated different generations of these phones with a number 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.000 after the name, But the Note and the S series 0:09:07.120 --> 0:09:10.680 were one number off from each other. The S was 0:09:10.720 --> 0:09:16.040 a generation ahead of the Note, so when the S 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:19.240 six came out, the Note five was coming out. So 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.320 after the Galaxy Note five, Samsung decided they were going 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:25.800 to give six a skip. They go straight to the 0:09:25.800 --> 0:09:29.040 Galaxy Note seven. This was kind of in an era 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.320 in which tech companies were skipping numbers in their product lines. 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:34.440 It kind of makes me think I should write a 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.319 science fiction novel set in an alternate universe where everyone 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:41.920 has a Samsung Galaxy Note six or an iPhone nine 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:45.960 and they all work on Windows nine machines. But anyway, 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:51.000 Samsung unveiled the Galaxy Note seven on August second. They 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:55.120 launched it on August nineteen, This is in twenty sixteen, 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:57.760 and they showed off a ton of new features in 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.800 the phone. They built up anticipation for it, particularly in 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:05.199 South Korea, where the sales were going pretty darn well. 0:10:05.559 --> 0:10:09.400 But on August twenty fourth, less than a week after 0:10:09.440 --> 0:10:12.360 the phone had launched, the first report of a Galaxy 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:16.400 Note seven catching fire made the news, and it wouldn't 0:10:16.400 --> 0:10:20.120 be the last time. On September second, Samsung announced a 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.559 recall of two and a half million Galaxy Notes seven 0:10:23.679 --> 0:10:27.000 units and said the problem was with a faulty battery. 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:31.720 They blamed a supplier that had supplied the batteries for 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.560 these two and a half million units. Customers had the 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.040 option of either getting a replacement so they could turn 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.839 their phone in and they would get a new phone 0:10:41.840 --> 0:10:44.000 with a different battery in it, or they could get 0:10:44.000 --> 0:10:47.439 a refund. Less than a week later, on September eighth, 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.400 the United States FAA told airlines to alert customers who 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:54.200 had a Galaxy Note seven that they were not to 0:10:54.400 --> 0:10:57.880 charge or to turn on their devices during flight. The 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:01.560 very next day, the US can Consumer Products Safety Commission 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:04.280 there they are again. They released a statement saying people 0:11:04.320 --> 0:11:07.200 should not be using the phone full stop, whether you're 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:10.160 on a plane or not. The agency later would issue 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:14.280 a full recall on September fifteenth. Now, Samsung was trying 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:17.480 to address the problems and keep the Galaxy Note seven afloat. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:19.880 The company planned to start selling the phones again in 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.560 South Korea starting on September twenty eighth. However, before that happened, 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:28.040 news reports from China stated that there were also issues 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:32.679 with the Note seven catching fire and exploding in China. 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.720 Now this was very concerning, not just because obviously you 0:11:36.720 --> 0:11:39.440 don't want your product exploding and hurting your customers, but 0:11:39.559 --> 0:11:43.800 because the batteries in the Chinese phones actually came from 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:48.120 a different supplier, right, And remember Samsung had said that 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.360 it was the supplier that had sent faulty batteries, but 0:11:52.480 --> 0:11:55.760 now this was a different supplier. What was going on here? 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.640 And Samsung did start selling phones again in South Korea 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:03.240 and issuing replacements for US customers, but the problems didn't stop. 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.600 The replacements would have similar issues to the original phones. 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:11.800 They still would catch fire or sometimes explode. On October sixth, 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:14.760 a Southwest Airline flight in the United States had to 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:17.920 be evacuated when a Galaxy Note seven that was on 0:12:18.040 --> 0:12:21.800 board the plane began to start smoking. More reports of 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:26.120 overheating phones would follow. US carriers announced they would stop 0:12:26.240 --> 0:12:29.599 selling the phone, like phone carrier said, we're gonna curtail 0:12:30.200 --> 0:12:33.679 selling this phone, and they start they'd stop issuing replacements too, 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:37.480 like they would stop replacing older Note sevens older by 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:41.240 like a week with newer ones. So on October eleventh, 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:44.440 Samsung issued a statement saying the company was investigating the 0:12:44.480 --> 0:12:48.280 issue and recommended that all Galaxy Note seven owners powered 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.520 down their phones and to stop using them. That's a 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:54.320 message you definitely don't want to give when you're a manufacturer, 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.800 is to stop using our product. The investigation revealed that 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.040 the early Galaxy Note seven models had a problem with 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:04.800 a battery that was too large for the phone that 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:09.440 it was inside. Essentially, the battery was big because Samsung 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:12.480 wanted to make sure that the battery life was sufficient 0:13:12.559 --> 0:13:14.600 to give you a full charge for a day. But 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:17.120 remember this is a fablet. It's a smartphone with a 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.640 really big screen. I mean that's a power hungry device. 0:13:21.160 --> 0:13:24.920 So these batteries would fit in the very slim form 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:28.640 factor of the Galaxy Note seven, but only just and 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:31.760 it was such a snug fit that it could squash 0:13:32.360 --> 0:13:35.760 the negative electrodes on the battery to come into contact 0:13:35.760 --> 0:13:39.120 with the positive electrodes through making contact with a conductive 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:41.720 element in the phone itself. And this is where we 0:13:41.760 --> 0:13:45.040 have to talk about stuff like short circuits and thermal runaway. 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:48.200 So normally, in a circuit, you have a path like 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:52.040 a circuit is just a pathway, right, and ultimately the 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:56.840 pathway has terminations at a negative terminal and a positive terminal, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:00.760 and electricity flows through this pathway and it does some 0:14:00.800 --> 0:14:03.480 sort of work along the way. Whatever the circuit is for, 0:14:03.760 --> 0:14:06.880 it does the work of that circuit. But if you 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:09.680 were to create a direct connection between the negative and 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:13.960 positive terminals that bypass this whole pathway, well, the electricity 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.560 would have a much easier and shorter path to take, 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:20.320 and it would do that and there's no work that's doing. 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:23.160 There'd be no governing elements to put a check on 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:26.080 the flow of electricity. You would have a short circuit, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.760 and the electrochemical reactions in the battery would give off 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.080 more and more heat. They are exothermic reactions, and eventually 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:36.400 you would get hot enough where you could potentially have 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:39.840 a structural failure of the battery itself and a potential 0:14:39.920 --> 0:14:42.800 fire or explosion on your hands. That appeared to be 0:14:42.840 --> 0:14:45.960 the issue with the first set of phones. The tight 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:49.120 fit of the battery really seemed to be to blame. 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:51.640 But that's not the end of the story. We're going 0:14:51.680 --> 0:14:53.480 to take a quick break. When we come back, I'll 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:56.880 finish up on Samsung. We'll talk about some other recalls 0:14:56.920 --> 0:15:09.800 as well, but first let's think our sponsors. Okay, we're back. 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:15.000 So Samsung engineers thought that they had identified and then 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:21.680 addressed the exploding battery issue by switching to handsets that 0:15:21.760 --> 0:15:25.600 had batteries that were made by a different supplier, because surely, 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:29.240 if it was a manufacturing error that came from one supplier, 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.720 the other supplier should be cushioned against that. However, the 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:37.880 pressure to get replacements off the assembly line and into 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:42.080 customers hands as quickly as possible perhaps contributed to a 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:47.120 scenario where there were more manufacturing issues different ones, But 0:15:47.160 --> 0:15:50.480 there were still manufacturing issues with the batteries themselves. So 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.880 this time the manufacturing errors in the batteries created a 0:15:53.920 --> 0:15:57.040 situation in which some batteries had the positive electrode make 0:15:57.160 --> 0:16:00.960 contact with the negative one inside the battery really like 0:16:01.000 --> 0:16:03.320 the positive part of the battery and the negative part 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.480 of the battery would get squished together so tightly that 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:09.840 there would be contact inside the battery instead of separation 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:12.880 like you're supposed to keep it separated. Otherwise you still 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.240 have a short circuit. Well it had a short circuit, 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:18.080 so in the end you still had batteries catching fire 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:21.880 and exploding, and Samsung would recall millions of handsets and 0:16:21.920 --> 0:16:24.720 they had to take a loss on the entire generation 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:28.640 of the Galaxy Note smartphone. Samsung would continue to make 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.680 more handsets in the Galaxy Note line, but they released 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.400 the final one in twenty twenty with the Galaxy Note 0:16:35.480 --> 0:16:39.120 twenty so and that wasn't the twentieth generation. They just 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.360 gave that the name because it was coming out in 0:16:41.400 --> 0:16:44.960 twenty twenty. The cost of the Galaxy Note seven recall 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:49.120 was in the billions of dollars, and there were lawsuits 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.080 brought against Samsung related to the battery incidents, so that 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:55.640 was even more cost on top of just the expense 0:16:55.720 --> 0:17:00.680 of replacing these phones and then ultimately recalling a refunding. 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:04.280 The scrutiny that followed the scandal may have contributed to 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:08.720 a massive political change in South Korea. Now I stress 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.760 may so I'm going to explain what happened, but keep 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:16.400 in mind, like the Samsung Note seven thing, if anything, 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:19.560 was just sort of an early event that led to 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:23.600 more scrutiny on the company itself. So Samsung is what's 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:28.600 called a chable, meaning it's a company, a Korean company 0:17:28.760 --> 0:17:32.280 that ultimately is run by a very powerful individual or family. 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:35.920 In Samsung's case, it's a family. One member of that family, 0:17:36.359 --> 0:17:39.520 the one presumed to be the heir of Samsung, the 0:17:39.560 --> 0:17:43.440 person who will inherit it is Lee Jay Yong. And 0:17:43.560 --> 0:17:48.240 in early twenty seventeen, Lee Jayyong was arrested on charges 0:17:48.320 --> 0:17:52.800 of bribing a confidant to the president of South Korea. 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:56.520 That case went well beyond Samsung, and it was not 0:17:56.720 --> 0:18:00.720 just Samsung that was thought to have participated in bribery, 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.600 but Samsung played a big part in this scandal. So 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:08.840 the scandal was huge, and ultimately Lee j Young was 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:13.040 found guilty on all charges and sentenced to five years 0:18:13.040 --> 0:18:16.119 in prison. He served a year and then the court 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.960 eventually reduced his sentence and then suspended the remaining amount 0:18:21.240 --> 0:18:23.800 and he was released. But he did spend a year 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:27.720 in prison. South Korea's president was impeached as a result 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:31.199 of this massive scandal. She was shown the door. So 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:35.439 while the exploding phones didn't directly contribute to that story, 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:40.680 you could argue they brought unwanted attention to Samsung's activities 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:45.359 and that's what led people to discover this case of bribery. 0:18:45.600 --> 0:18:48.160 If you're wondering what the bribery was all about. Allegedly 0:18:48.200 --> 0:18:51.679 it was about bribing the president so that a big 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:55.400 merger could go through for Samsung, essentially greasing the wheels. 0:18:55.600 --> 0:18:58.840 Samsung would argue that there was no bribery. There was 0:18:58.880 --> 0:19:01.399 just a customary gift, something that was just, you know, 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.400 just a custom in South Korea. But the courts did 0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:09.680 not agree with that particular defense, So there we have it. Now. 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:14.240 Sometimes a tech recall isn't for the tech part of 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:18.160 the product, not necessarily directly anyway, but it's still something 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:22.200 that poses as a potential hazard or legal liability. That 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.000 was partly the case for Toyota, with one of the 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:29.440 costliest recalls ever at that point. Though to be fair, 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:34.720 this recall also segues into some other related recalls, like 0:19:34.720 --> 0:19:37.360 two other ones, one of which related to a very 0:19:37.359 --> 0:19:42.600 similar problem, and this was happening really around late two 0:19:42.680 --> 0:19:45.960 thousand and nine. That's when Toyota and the National Highway 0:19:46.400 --> 0:19:52.080 Traffic Safety Administration or NHTSA, responded to reports that some 0:19:52.200 --> 0:19:57.160 Toyota owners had experienced what was called unintended acceleration, which 0:19:57.200 --> 0:20:01.440 is the car would go when no go was really 0:20:01.480 --> 0:20:05.720 the desired outcome, but then cargo when it should no go. 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:09.720 Toyota had been through this before, actually two years earlier. 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:13.040 In two thousand and seven, Toyota discovered that its optional 0:20:13.280 --> 0:20:16.760 all weather floor mats had the potential to slide around 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.320 if unsecured, and that it could mean the mat could 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.320 slide and snag the accelerator pedal, thus holding the pedal 0:20:24.359 --> 0:20:27.000 down even after the driver would lift their foot off 0:20:27.040 --> 0:20:29.879 of the pedal. So the company swiftly issued a recall 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.040 for around fifty five thousand vehicles that had these all 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:35.440 weather mats back in two thousand and seven. In two 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:39.520 thousand and nine, the problem was larger than all weather mats. 0:20:39.560 --> 0:20:42.040 It appeared to be an issue with millions of Toyota 0:20:42.080 --> 0:20:45.240 and Lexus vehicles. Floor mats on the driver side could 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.960 similarly snag and trap the accelerator pedal, so the company 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:53.000 issued a wide recall, but at least for a subset 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:57.479 of vehicles. This solution of removing the floor mat didn't 0:20:57.640 --> 0:21:02.240 fully address the problem, so in early twenty ten, Toyota 0:21:02.320 --> 0:21:06.880 issued another recall, this time for faulty accelerator pedals themselves. 0:21:07.200 --> 0:21:10.080 The shape of the pedal appeared to be the problem. 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.720 The pedal could catch on the floorboard and it could 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:17.120 stay down. Most but not all, of the recalled vehicles 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:21.480 were also under the recall for the driver matt issue, 0:21:21.800 --> 0:21:24.960 so Toyota and the NHTSA had a bit of a 0:21:25.000 --> 0:21:28.520 spat about this. The car company initially insisted that the 0:21:28.600 --> 0:21:31.240 floor mats were the beginning and end of the problem, 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:36.240 and the NHTSA kept saying the problem hasn't been fixed yet. Now. 0:21:36.240 --> 0:21:38.719 There were other issues as well that Toyota had to 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:42.120 address with its various vehicles, but the floor mat slash 0:21:42.359 --> 0:21:46.920 faulty accelerator pedal. Those flaws cropped up and stayed an 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:51.680 issue into early twenty eleven, and they necessitated several recalls 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:57.080 of various Toyota vehicles. The company and its dealerships incurred 0:21:57.280 --> 0:22:01.960 billions of dollars in costs as result of these recalls. Moreover, 0:22:02.000 --> 0:22:05.320 the company's image took a big hit, and in the end, 0:22:05.440 --> 0:22:09.120 while the problem had the potential to cause accidents, very 0:22:09.160 --> 0:22:12.720 few incidents were ever reported. To learn more about the 0:22:12.800 --> 0:22:16.640 media hype that surrounded the problem, I recommend reading Robert E. 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:20.520 Cole's twenty eleven pieces in The Atlantic. It as the 0:22:20.560 --> 0:22:24.440 title who was really at fault? For the Toyota recalls? 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.959 Because it's a complicated story, Like, there was definitely an 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:32.000 issue there, and a potentially very dangerous issue, but there 0:22:32.000 --> 0:22:35.760 were a lot of players in the space that complicated 0:22:36.000 --> 0:22:40.800 things beyond how they already were. So Toyota has also 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:45.120 been affected by another recall, one that affected eighteen other 0:22:45.320 --> 0:22:48.720 auto makers and more than thirty brands of cars. So 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.560 I'm talking about air bags made by a part supplier 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:55.360 called Takata. A fault was found in Takata air bags 0:22:55.440 --> 0:22:59.679 that could lead to accidental and explosive deployment, and this 0:22:59.720 --> 0:23:03.760 could also include the air bags rupturing and the explosion 0:23:03.840 --> 0:23:08.359 propelling dangerous or even deadly shrapnel into a vehicle. Multiple 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:11.720 people died as a result of this over the course 0:23:11.760 --> 0:23:16.080 of several different years. So the issue originated with the 0:23:16.119 --> 0:23:20.120 inflator for the air bags, the actual device responsible for 0:23:20.440 --> 0:23:23.119 pushing gas into the air bag at an incredible speed. 0:23:23.400 --> 0:23:27.680 So the inflators used a propellant of ammonium nitrate, and 0:23:27.800 --> 0:23:31.159 the propellant that Takata was using in these early steel 0:23:31.280 --> 0:23:34.960 inflators did not have a chemical drying agent, a desiccant 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:38.480 in other words, and that meant that in humid environments, 0:23:38.560 --> 0:23:43.520 moisture could affect the propellant and high temperatures could make 0:23:43.640 --> 0:23:48.120 this very very reactive. So here in the United States, 0:23:48.160 --> 0:23:52.440 the NHTSA identified a few regions as being more conducive 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.920 to the environmental factors that have an impact and make 0:23:56.000 --> 0:23:59.240 these things more dangerous. It's dangerous no matter where you are, 0:23:59.600 --> 0:24:04.160 but there's certain areas where because of the climate, it's 0:24:04.359 --> 0:24:07.960 more likely to happen. So that includes the southeastern United States, 0:24:08.119 --> 0:24:10.800 including my home state of Georgia, as well as the 0:24:10.800 --> 0:24:13.160 state of Hawaii and a few other places. So they 0:24:13.240 --> 0:24:15.960 kind of divided up the United States into three zones, 0:24:16.400 --> 0:24:19.680 with each zone having a certain level of risk, and 0:24:20.200 --> 0:24:22.880 the zone my states and is in the highest risk. Now, 0:24:23.000 --> 0:24:26.640 the problem has been around since the late nineteen nineties. 0:24:27.000 --> 0:24:30.680 There were models from like model year ninety eight or 0:24:30.760 --> 0:24:34.440 ninety nine that were included in the various recalls eventually, 0:24:34.760 --> 0:24:37.880 and there were vehicles as recent as the model year 0:24:37.960 --> 0:24:42.159 twenty sixteen that were part of this. Around sixty seven 0:24:42.920 --> 0:24:47.880 million airbags are affected by this recall or the series 0:24:47.920 --> 0:24:51.080 of recalls here in the United States. Global figures are 0:24:51.080 --> 0:24:55.440 closer to one hundred million. The NHTSA says at least 0:24:55.600 --> 0:25:00.160 twenty seven people have died from these exploding airbags, more 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:03.080 than four hundred had been injured due to them, and 0:25:03.160 --> 0:25:06.119