Interview: How finance is shaping Wisk’s next aircraft with acting CFO Drake Berglund

In the first of two arti­cles, Wisk’s act­ing CFO Drake Berglund speaks to eVTOL Insights and explains how com­mer­cial require­ments, bat­tery deci­sions and ear­ly test­ing are influ­enc­ing the devel­op­ment of Gen 6.

For Berglund, help­ing devel­op Wisk’s Gen 6 air­craft means work­ing close­ly with engi­neers on choic­es that will shape both its per­for­mance and its com­mer­cial prospects.

“There are major deci­sions ear­ly in an air­plane pro­gram like Wisk’s Gen 6 that have an endur­ing impact on com­pa­ny finan­cials,” He tells eVTOL Insights. “Get­ting to help shape them has been deeply reward­ing.”

One of those deci­sions con­cerned the air­craft con­fig­u­ra­tion. Wisk con­sid­ered adapt­ing an exist­ing design for com­mer­cial cer­ti­fi­ca­tion before choos­ing changes to bet­ter meet mar­ket require­ments.

“We adjust­ed it to sup­port mar­ket require­ments, includ­ing poten­tial future deriv­a­tives, which meant a larg­er fuse­lage, addi­tion­al pas­sen­ger capac­i­ty, and an updat­ed propul­sion con­fig­u­ra­tion that sup­port­ed greater speed and range.”

The changes brought addi­tion­al devel­op­ment costs and time, but Berglund says they were the right choice for the mar­ket Wisk intend­ed to serve.

Bring­ing finance into design deci­sions

Start­ing with a clean-sheet air­craft gave Wisk an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring com­mer­cial and tech­ni­cal think­ing togeth­er ear­ly.

“That’s the beau­ty of a clean-sheet air­plane design. We did not inher­it an ear­li­er design or have to tweak deci­sions made years or decades ago,” Berglund says.

“It’s a chal­lenge, but it’s impor­tant that every­one has a seat at the table ear­ly. Ear­ly stage prod­uct devel­op­ment is a very col­lab­o­ra­tive effort, and in a tech­no­log­i­cal­ly ambi­tious air­plane, with sig­nif­i­cant tech­ni­cal, mar­ket, and pro­gram­mat­ic risk, there’s a healthy ten­sion.”

That col­lab­o­ra­tion includes finance and strat­e­gy, pro­duc­tion sys­tems, cer­ti­fi­ca­tion spe­cial­ists and Inte­grat­ed Prod­uct Teams. Air­craft-lev­el com­mer­cial require­ments are trans­lat­ed into engi­neer­ing tar­gets and deci­sions about what Wisk devel­ops inter­nal­ly or buys from sup­pli­ers.

The com­pa­ny assess­es major engi­neer­ing and pro­gramme deci­sions against an esti­mat­ed cost tar­get of $4 per pas­sen­ger mile.

“Often­times, the changes are in the cents, but at scale, that mat­ters very much. This ensures we’re build­ing a viable prod­uct and clear­ly ties every­thing we do to some­thing that mat­ters to a cus­tomer. Not only an air­line or oper­a­tor, but the end cus­tomer, who every­one across the val­ue chain needs in order to suc­ceed.”

Recon­sid­er­ing the bat­tery strat­e­gy

Bat­tery devel­op­ment illus­trates how those dis­cus­sions can change the direc­tion of invest­ment. Wisk assessed cell for­mats and its approach to devel­op­ing the mod­ules used in its bat­tery packs.

“Ulti­mate­ly, we chose to part­ner with a sup­pli­er at the mod­ule lev­el to accel­er­ate tech­ni­cal matu­ri­ty, because we felt we could lever­age their insights from sup­port­ing the broad­er ecosys­tem,” Berglund says.

“That was a hard deci­sion. There was a lot of ben­e­fit to stay­ing ver­ti­cal in that domain, with the devel­op­ment in-house and close by. But after talk­ing to mul­ti­ple poten­tial sup­pli­ers and con­duct­ing a detailed make-buy analy­sis, we decid­ed to change our strat­e­gy.”

Test­ing helped inform the deci­sion, along­side the increas­ing matu­ri­ty of poten­tial sup­pli­ers.

“We strug­gled with bat­tery ther­mal run­away tests. You’re run­ning small-scale tests repeat­ed­ly on dif­fer­ent design iter­a­tions, and we weren’t reach­ing a lev­el of matu­ri­ty we felt would scale into the prod­uct. That test result drove a dif­fer­ent fund­ing deci­sion and a dif­fer­ent approach to sup­pli­er selec­tion, which changed where we spent that mon­ey.”

Invest­ing in learn­ing before pro­duc­tion

Wisk’s Block Zero non-con­form­ing pro­to­type reflects anoth­er delib­er­ate invest­ment choice: spend­ing more upfront to learn how the aircraft’s sys­tems work togeth­er before pro­gress­ing to a con­form­ing design.

“It was a high­er-cost upfront strat­e­gy to do more inte­grat­ed test­ing. We did it at the air­plane lev­el and explic­it­ly said these air­planes are not for con­for­mi­ty. They are for tech­ni­cal learn­ing and inte­gra­tion,” Berglund explains.

“That costs more in bill of mate­ri­als, ear­ly labor, and tool­ing on the pro­duc­tion side, and a lot of that tool­ing will ulti­mate­ly have to be repur­chased for the con­form­ing design.”

Ded­i­cat­ed design-build teams also con­tribute to that ear­ly invest­ment, bring­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing, pro­duc­tion, sys­tems engi­neer­ing and pro­gramme man­age­ment exper­tise into the work.

“What you get in exchange is a far high­er lev­el of learn­ing, tech­ni­cal rig­or, and integri­ty in the sys­tem design, and much ear­li­er iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the real prob­lem spots you could poten­tial­ly gloss over in a paper design. You also get tech­ni­cal matu­ri­ty that’s evi­denced by a fly­ing air­plane, which of course you can­not fake.”

Learn­ing along­side the engi­neers

Berglund’s enthu­si­asm is par­tic­u­lar­ly clear when he reflects on the peo­ple behind the pro­gramme.

“I’ve learned a tremen­dous amount from work­ing so close­ly with our Wisk engi­neers, and it’s been a real plea­sure to be part of such a tight-knit pro­gram, large­ly based at one site here in Moun­tain View, Cal­i­for­nia, where you can see the progress first­hand.”

He cites chief engi­neer Geoff Long’s rule of five: the view that nov­el sys­tems need repeat­ed attempts to reach matu­ri­ty. Berglund sees lessons in that approach for finance and pro­gramme plan­ning too.

“For any­thing that has­n’t been ful­ly devel­oped before, whether it’s a busi­ness case or a pro­gram sched­ule, the more iter­a­tions you can have, the bet­ter. Per­haps five real­ly is the mag­ic num­ber.”

Finance, in turn, encour­ages engi­neers to take own­er­ship of bud­gets and under­stand the busi­ness case behind their work.

“What I hope we’ve also impart­ed to the engi­neer­ing team is the impor­tance of deliv­er­ing a prod­uct, keep­ing promis­es, and invest­ment dis­ci­pline. Those can feel like they slow engi­neer­ing progress, but they’re ulti­mate­ly what cre­ates val­ue: har­ness­ing engi­neer­ing inge­nu­ity in a way that meets cus­tomer needs with­in a dis­ci­plined invest­ment approach.”

For Berglund, giv­ing engi­neers that vis­i­bil­i­ty also cre­ates a shared sense of pur­pose.

“Bring­ing them into the fold, sat­is­fy­ing that curios­i­ty, get­ting their feed­back, and then hav­ing them take own­er­ship of their piece of the puz­zle is very sat­is­fy­ing. It fits into the broad­er idea of active­ly man­ag­ing the air­plane pro­gram, with every­one pulling in the same direc­tion to accom­plish some­thing larg­er than them­selves.”