sn26567 wrote:Jon Ostrower of the Wall Street Journal reports that NTSB will wrap up its 787 Li-Ion battery investigation in March, with a full report to be presented in "the fall."
Not too soon. Have they discovered what caused the problems in the first place?
The NTSB said they will announce a 'probable cause' by the end of the year.
Since 787's resumed commercial operations in May there have been no overheating battery cells anymore. Boeing retained the the lithium-cobalt-oxide chemistry of the 32V batteries, as well as the eight large cells. But it improved the software to detect and control temperature fluctuations before things get out of control. In case the software still fails, four additional layers of safety were added. The space between the eight cells was enlarged and ceramic heat shields were added between the different battery cells. All this was put in a stainless steel box which is able to sustain 3 times the energy such batteries can generate when 'exploding' and an improved system was installed to vent any possible exhaust.
ANA and JAL did experience some 'battery problems', but these were related solely to the battery chargers and didn't involve overheating of the batteries or certain cells.
Boeing selected the original design of the batteries (made by GS Yuasa) in 2005. Back in those days it was normal procedure to test such batteries in a nail penetration test. In 2008 the aviation industry adopted a new informal industry standard that such tests are basicly worthless. BUT Boeing never returned to testing the 787 batteries except for the regular testing of the 787 as a whole. A decision that exploded in their face.
http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... gn-394664/
sn26567 wrote:
Elsewhere, the same journalist says that, according to JPMorgan, each 787-8 still costs $45m above selling price to build. Still a lot to do before making the project profitable!
It's no secret that Boeing will not be profitable on the whole program until they delivered at least 1100 aircraft (or was it already more?). Talking about the price per aircraft, 45 million is still a lot, but looking at the history of this program, not exactly unexpected. I believe it took Airbus also many years before they achieved in getting the building cost of the A380 below the average price for which they sold these aircraft.
The 787-8 has been a very large and very long learning process. It costed them many billions more than expected, but they learned a lot for future programs such as the 737MAX and the 777X and later 787 versions (the 787-9 design, early production and testing has gone very smooth so far, yes it is delayed compared to the original plans, but that's due to the delays in the 787 program overall).
these extra two (for the -9 version instead of the -8) are expected in 2016 (they will be leased, otherwise they would get them even later). But they still have 5 other 787-8's still on order (I believe they'll get 4 this year). 
