Must be some sort of glitch in the battery management system. Li-ion battery is a proven technology in billions of cell phones and portable computers and devices. Most new aircraft designs and car models have teething problems that must be resolved after commercial release. For that reason, auto mfg's are keeping the prices of new-release EV's (including HEV's and PHEV's) high to sell only a limited number of vehicles to work out the initial teething problems, in order to avoid massive cost of recalls.

'GS Yuasa’s Li-ion prismatic batteries—its LVP 10-65 cells, with lithium cobalt oxide cathode materials'

So they have plumped for the highest energy density chemistry instead of the most stable, and one similar to that which caused problems in laptops.

Lithium titanate or lithium iron phosphate would almost certainly not have had a problem.

Right on the money Davemart. It seems that corporations everywhere are filled with vacuous talking heads incapable of making rational decisions. There are plenty of li-ion chemistries that would avoid the difficulties described regarding the batteries used in the 787. They could additionally have choosen ionic liquids as electrolytes. Sure, current density is not that high, but this is not an automobile application. This is a story that the average reader will see as indicating that li ion is dangerous, but for me it indicates that the lack of intelligence in corporations is dangerous. They spend billions, but can't make a rational choice. Poorly done Boeing. It didn't occur to you to ask an expert on batteries?

All the above, esp. Davemart, Herm, and wintermane2000.

Boeing has had multiple management (and design) problems with their B-787 for many years. It was delayed for almost 4 years to find and apply multiple fixes.

Why wasn't the battery potential problem identified and fixed 3 or 4 years ago? Or, was it only one of the 1000+ fixes to address? How did Boeing manage to get these batteries certified in the first place?

These batteries may not be the only potential failure on this plane? An in-depth investigation will probably find more? Meanwhile, those planes may be grounded for an extended period.

I think it will be a mistake to criticize Boeing to harshly. The 787 makes many giant leaps in technology and it is reasonable that there will be problems to solve. Hopefully the problems that arise will be fixed without fatalities. Certainly many problems have already been addressed and solved. Remember the fatal problems and subsequent learning experienced by the DC-10, B737, B727, Airbus 300 (American flight 587).

@citizen - amen

A 8S very big Li-Ion LVP65 cells (75Ah x 3.7V x 8) battery without circuit-breaker (of course) on each single cell is not obviously a nice choice for an aircraft battery and to prevent thermal runaway phenomena. It's may be time for Boeing's subcontractors to comme back to a traditional two 24 Volts Nickel-Cadmium batteries solution or a more sophisticated Serie/ Parallel design with smaller prismatic Li-Ion cells . It's a necessary long way to go!

I burned up my first lithium battery in an RC model glider twenty years ago this summer. Last year I made a mistake while recharging five lithium ion polymers and exploded and burned all of them. Roger says that RC pilots have been able to abuse a lot of li-pos and get away with it. While mostly true, some of the exceptions are eye-openers.

There have been a significant number of house fires and many vehicles burned up by accidents with Li-pos. Many modelers just figure it goes with the territory.

Having said that; I would not fly in an airplane with a lithium battery on board. They are not yet ready for prime time.

@Raymond B,
NiMh has 3x the specific energy capacity in comparison to NiCad, and in HEV's, NiMh have proven to be very safe. All Boeing has to do is directly utilize the proven NiMH hybrid car battery's prismatic cells and connect them to the size and capacity that they so desire.

@Lucas,
Sorry for your loss, and yes, Lithium Cobalt battery is quite intolerant of improper charging. But, once a R/C pilot have gone with a Li-Po pack, is not going to come back! (to NiCad nor NiMh!) The power, capacity, and performance of modern Li-Po is truly breathtaking, and allow electric models with brushless motor to outperform equivalent-size nitro powered models!

@ Engineer-Poet

"Then again, nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without failures along the way."

Even if it could potentially kill passengers in the process? Not on my watch.

First of all, anyone who thinks LiPo, which was not used, is safe, is insane. Hobbyists blow up LiPo's all the time, they are probably the least safe chemistry. If you blow up your toy car or plane it's not a big deal.
As to the actual cells used, if you read the PDF in the article their specific energy is around LiFePO4 levels. With higher C rates and better safety LiFePO4 is probably what they should be using. If they were fully charging a 65ah cell in 75 minutes they were exceeding the 1C rating of the cell, depending on how deeply discharged they were.
That said this is really a battery management/charger failure that potentially could have caused any battery to catch fire from over charging.

Charging in 75 minutes is 0.8 C.

Substituting other batteries would require an STC, which requires a lot of testing and associated paperwork.  This is not something that comes easily or cheaply, though compared to the cost of a Dreamliner it won't come to much.

The part that's most interesting to me is how these problems failed to be detected much earlier.  Either the production cells are of lower quality, or it was just the luck of the draw.