PRODUCT SAFETY: Samsung Announces Cause of Galaxy Note 7 Fires, Apologizes to Customers.

After several months of investigations, Samsung announced Sunday in a Korean press conference the cause. DJ Koh, president of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics, shared detailed results of the company’s investigation and apologized profusely to Galaxy Note7 customers, mobile operators, retail and distribution partners and business partners.

After their internal investigation, Samsung determined that the fires — Samsung calls them “incidents” — were caused by defectively constructed batteries from two suppliers that resulted in a short circuit in the batteries. The short circuit allowed the positive and negative electrodes to touch. While the defects from each of the two battery manufactures were different, each was sufficient to cause the batteries to heat and burst into flames.

I’d be wary of any explanation placing full blame on two different defects in the same product from two different suppliers. Samsung’s reported rush to get the Note 7 to market and perhaps a flaw with the company’s design specs for the battery (as opposed to only manufacturing defects) also seem like obvious and likely culprits.