I don’t think it’s common for consumers to buy 18650 lithium batteries, I mean I do and I know that they are all fake if you order them online… I’m not really understanding the point of this article. Most consumer products come with the batteries inside them already. The idea of somehow banning the import of unsafe batteries seems pretty unrealistic.
I think this article is also talking about things like replacement batteries for things like e-scooters, power tools, garden tools, vacuum cleaners, and so on. The original ones are quite expensive, and there are dozens of 3rd party batteries for popular items like Dyson vacuums and Ryobi 40V garden tools. I believe most if not all of these consist of a bunch of 18650 inside a plastic case with a charging connector.
And Dyson has legal liability if they catch fire and a name brand to uphold if they don’t meet advertised runtimes. Amazon does not.
If you want a new battery for your Dyson, buy a tool battery adapter from Amazon and buy the tool battery from your local hardware store. Same price or less and you get insane run time + a new tool battery.
This x100. The Dyson batteries are expensive and die quickly (someone mentioned their experience mitigating the failure time by waiting to put the vacuum back on the charger until after it has cooled off). Getting a Milwaukee adapter for my Dysons has worked out really well. Runtime is much better, and I have one less custom battery size to deal with in my house.
The conventional wisdom here on HN is that every single item sold on Amazon is fake, without exception.
Realistically, there are probably some legit 18650s and lots of fake ones. But it could be difficult to figure out which ones are legit before buying them. Co-mingling of warehouse stock is often cited as a reason why this is impossible: a legitimate seller may list their items, and then some sellers of fakes come along and state that they are selling the same SKU, and Amazon will mix all of these in a single bin in the warehouses, and you don't know which one you're getting in your order.
Yeh, it's kind of insane that most electronics sold on Amazon now are counterfeit, fake or dangerous. How do they have no legal responsibility for the products sold in their store.
Probably not many real cells on Amazon, I looked quickly and the first 2 pages didn't have a single legitimate cell, but there are several online stores that sell legitimate cells like 18650batterystore.com
