SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20250816-5C935-2147328630. Severity: No Incident, No Injury. Product: Google Pixel 7a (Google Pixel 7a mobile phone). Incident: The battery on my Pixel 7a failed causing the phone's battery to quickly drain; the same day, the battery was swollen through the phone casing and eventually the battery held no charge at all and needed to be placed on the charger for power. This is a known and admitted issue with Google Pixel phones over many years: the 4a, 6a, and now the 7a (perhaps others). The same happened to my 6a, and I returned it to Google and they gave me an acceptable refund. From the experience on my Pixel 6a, I immediately knew the cause and reached out to Google support. Google support referred me to their Pixel 7a extended battery warranty process--Google calls it "Pixel 7a Battery Performance Program"--which stated I do not qualify because Google does not have a known issue with the battery in my device due to it's IMEI. I have since been alerting Google support that I'm trying to make the issue known to them: all I want is to send them my device so they can evaluate it, and they can dispose of it and offer me a refund or not--the phone is useless to me anyway and may be a risk to keep around. Each time, Google support makes me jump through hoops just to "escalate" the issue to an anonymous person who denies me via email or asks me to reply to their email, which is delivered to an unmonitored account; then I have to start over with support, which is a frustrating, endless loop waste of time. If Google's support is an implementation of their AI, YIKES. I was on a plane with the phone a week before this happened. The Google Pixel phone defective batteries are a risk of battery leak, explosion