The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 2021–2025
Tefal's kettle: 4.18 million recalled in Japan — the plug was the fire
Pull the cord, stress the plug, and 4,185,393 kettles could smoke or burn: 16 fires, one minor burn. Groupe SEB swaps the power plate free.
Groupe SEB Japan · 2025-09-16
What happened
Tefal's kettles are a Japanese kitchen staple, and Groupe SEB Japan imported 4,185,393 of them across 28 models and 60 products between October 2021 and July 2024.
The power plug could be damaged by ordinary cord handling — pulling the plug out by the cord — and a damaged plug could smoke or catch fire. From April 2024: 16 smoke-or-fire incidents and one minor burn. On September 16, 2025, the company recalled all 4.18 million and began swapping the power plate for one with a structurally different plug.
Units made from August 2024 already had the new plug — the company had quietly fixed the design a year before the recall admitted it needed fixing. The kitchens with the old plug got a toll-free number.
Why it happened
- The plug could be damaged by everyday cord handling — unplugging by the cord — and then smoke or catch fire: 16 smoke/fire incidents and one minor burn by September 2025
- 4,185,393 units across 28 models made Oct 2021–Jul 2024 — the fix is a structurally different plug, an admission that the old one was designed wrong
- Kettles are yanked: the use case the plug failed was the most ordinary motion in the kitchen, and the recall's own remedy concedes it
The lesson
Four million units is not a quality lapse, it is a design vote — the plug that breaks when the cord is yanked assumed a careful user, and 4.18 million kitchens voted otherwise.
Sources
- NHK — ティファール 電気ケトル 418万台余を交換 プラグ発火のおそれ (Sep 2025)
- マイナビニュース — ティファールの電気ケトル418万台に発火リスク、電源プレート無償交換 (Sep 2025)
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