[abysmallyideal]

Meh, it is too close to the rise of Goole as smartphone fab, the competition between Qualcomm and Samsung processors and the rise of Chinese fabs trying to enter the western markets.

Their adversaries are very dangerous and I wouldn't be surprised if they have to disassemble a huge amount of their production to find the error.

I still remember that Facebook Executive mysteriously jumping planes after the Koreans refused to make a Facebook only phone, and the plane having some weird malfunction and the ensuing racist banter by American media. Even the Japanese turned around their flights to SF to check their planes for sabotage, and found some strange errors in their flight systems. Of course they were american boeing airplanes, and they might do well to begin diversifying their fleet if you ask me.

[fsloth]

So your theory is that this is the result of industrial sabotage facilitated by a government?

Given that three letter agencies have assisted in industrial espionage in the past and industrial facilities have been damaged through remote exploits (iran's uranium centrifuges were targeted with a virus if I recall correctly) it certainly is not impossible.

However, we are discussing lots of sensitive batteries so problems in the errors of margin in manufacture or operations is a simpler explanation.