Boeing ramps up production plan for 787, still using troubled lithium-ion battery.

Boeing hasn't said how much it cost. Barclays Capital analyst Carter Copeland estimated that Boeing spent some $30 billion to $40 billion developing the 787. The whole company is worth about $56 billion. The 787 is “massively important” to Boeing, he said.

“The hope is that the technology will produce a long-tern return that was worth all of the risk,” he said. “But any hope of that is dependent on having the program go well from here.”

Monthly goal 10 787s

Boeing is still building 787s even though it has halted deliveries to customers. It's on track to ramp up production from five per month now to 10 per month by year end, McNerney said, and still aims to deliver at least 60 of the planes in this year.

He declined to discuss the possibility that regulators will require a complex fix that delays speeding up production.

Investigators are still trying to find out what caused the two battery incidents that grounded the 787. But McNerney said the company has learned nothing that makes him think they made a mistake in picking lithium-ion batteries. The 787 was the first plane to use the batteries so extensively.