I also think users are probably better at diagnosing "The keyboard smells like piss" than software implications on battery life
It could be that every owner has a cat and they all feel the need to mark dell laptops as their property but that seems unlikely.
If you read the comments you will see that they did not all immediately reek but it happened over a few days which rules out a batch getting watered en route since they would stink when removed from box (and probably suffer other problems, Laptops + liquid do not mix)
That is even assuming said liquid could even make it to the laptop through all the packaging.
It sounds far more like a reaction to hands + chemicals in/on keyboard or maybe chemicals used to create keyboard gradually reacting to heat of laptop.
Especially since people have provided links in threads detailing how this can happen.
So occam's razor, something in the manufacturing process; even if it is just one batch.
AKA Dell's fault.
Even if it's a software update, Apple bears the full brunt
of all the acrimony, because when it comes to Macintosh
products, Apple takes credit for the whole thing,
regardless of where the failure originates, be it
hardware or software.