Best transportation industry books according to redditors
We found 84 Reddit comments discussing the best transportation industry books. We ranked the 45 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 84 Reddit comments discussing the best transportation industry books. We ranked the 45 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
Well, for one, people are (annoyingly) high on everything Musk shits out; the Tesla is a 100k car with the interior from a Honda Accord, that you can't do diddly with or else Tesla shuts it down remotely, but none of that matters because class identifier.
In general when it comes to corporate decision-making I take the 40k Inquisition approach: there's no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt. There's a book, High and Mighty: The Dangerous Rise of the SUV that basically explains the rise of the SUV in the 90s and 00s as a way to continue selling the highly optioned, high margin boats Americans had been buying previously, while ducking out of the attendant taxes and regulations regarding safety, pollution and fuel efficiency. (There's also the psychological value add of being able to bully people out of your way because you're an American and statistically that makes you an awful driver.) And going back even further, Regs' vaunted IMMORTAN IACOCCA's desire for a light, cheap, and quick to market subcompact was responsible for the Pinto fiasco. I'm mad, mad online about corporate malfeasance.
x-post from r/vessels
This really hits close to home. I lost a friend and two acquaintances on the El Faro. I've also had a family member serve on her back in the '90s. And I sailed on the ship that took over her run in the Caribbean. It's amazing how few people have even heard of this event.
There's a book coming out soon that you can pre-order on Amazon all about the disaster.
Into the Raging Sea: Thirty-Three Mariners, One Megastorm, and the Sinking of El Faro
I also have pretty intimate knowledge of the ship and the plant if anyone has some questions. I might be able to answer.
Toyota really was the pioneer of lean production. I was in college when "The Machine That Changed The World" came out, and it was required reading for anyone in business or engineering at the time. When I went to work at Ford in 1992, they were all gung-ho about JIT, lean, and the rest of it.
Here's the book: http://www.amazon.com/Machine-That-Changed-World-Revolutionizing/dp/0743299795
It's not unique to this country. Shipping vessels are strange.
You can read a book called "Ninety Percent of Everything" which explains some of the huge legal issues surrounding some cases of boats stuck in purgatory.
TL;DR often the boat is registered to a shell company in one country and 'owned' by people from several different countries, then the boat itself will be in one country, the crew will be from other countries and if the boat is in international waters then it could be under yet another country.
>The ocean itself is indifferent, implacable, deadly. Ms. George notes that 2,000 seafarers die at sea each year, and more than two ships are lost each week. These events do not make the evening news. As a man who lost his brother at sea says to her, “If it had been airplane safety, something would have been done about it.”
>The ocean is a wild, mostly lawless place. As one mariner comments, “There are no skid marks on the ocean.” When an accident does occur, it can be difficult to seek even meager justice. “There is no police force or union official to assist,” the author says. “Who do you complain to, when you are employed by a Manila manning agency on a ship owned by an American, flagged by Panama, managed by a Cypriot, in international waters?”"
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/17/books/ninety-percent-of-everything-by-rose-george.html?mcubz=1
https://www.amazon.com/Ninety-Percent-Everything-Shipping-Invisible-ebook/dp/B009LRWJKW
In some ways; bit of a mess in others... Empire of the Clouds is a pretty good account of it all.
This is simply not true. In fact, lean manufacturing, which was developed by Toyota, is one of the most significant advancements the auto industry has ever seen, and is "copied" by all major auto manufacturers today.
A great book to read about the subject is The Machine that Changed the World.
Streetfight is what you are looking for.
Other books related to this topic in some form or another:
The New Localism
The New Geography of Jobs
The Public Wealth of Cities
Politics of Resentment
The Color of Law
City-County Consolidation
Its hard to sum up on what makes it worth watching, the drivers have a lot of personality, the level of competition is very high, and with 43 cars on the track there is always something going on.
The quality of racing is very good if you like a lot of passing (overtaking for the F1 terms). Depending on what track they are at, it can very close quarters racing with very aggressive driving. Lots of strategy involved on any given week.
A couple of books I would recommend are:
http://www.amazon.com/Driving-Devil-Southern-Moonshine-Detroit/dp/1400082269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1309974163&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Inside-Things-Winston-Pursuit/dp/1893618226/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1309974122&sr=8-1
Why do I love NASCAR?
Again its kinda hard to answer. Like all the things I've mentioned before and also the access viewers can get. A lot of drivers are on Twitter which gives you insight into their day to day lives you don't normally see. You can get complete access to radio feeds of the teams during races.
What caused me to become hooked?
Probably just growing up watching it with my Dad mostly but what really hooked me was going to see a race live and sitting in the stands watching it first hand. Just like with F1, its a life style or its own culture. If you ever get the chance I highly recommend going to a race.
The origins of Lean are a bit murky, but the most famous example is the Toyota Production System. You can read about it in two books:
The Machine that Changed the World
and
Lean Thinking
Both are easy reads and present the core concepts of Lean in a very easy to understand way. I loan my copies out to my employees on a regular basis. The Japanese are the most famous practitioners of Lean. To them, it's like a religion.
Many members of my own family were moonshiners back in the day, I have even heard rumors of a still being found on our property and destroyed sometime in the 1920's or 1930's. Driving with the Devil is a fascinating book on this topic, and one I recommend any Nascar fan or history buff should read. The material is interesting as fuck.
It is known. Detailed in this book. Drivers also go faster on wider lanes, even if those wide lanes are in a city!
Oh boy, one of my favourite topcis! I'm doing something similar right now, trying to do some feasibility studies for an electric homebuilt! I'll try to answer to the best of my abilities, hopefully others on this forum.
My answer is based almost entirely on this book: General Aviation Aircraft Design: Applied Methods and Procedures and a little more on Simplified Aircraft Design for Homebuilders. The math isn't too tricky, though it helps if you have some background in aerospace or aeronautics. There are some pretty decent courses on EdX if you want to explore those further.
The answer depends significantly on what you want your aircraft to do (slow 4-seater? fast 2-seater?), and some estimates on the shape of your aircraft. I'll summarize just the necessary parts for this question.
The other thing to note is: there isn't much different about how an electric aircraft flies, the only difference comes in when you need to calculate the range. In a typical piston aircraft, the fuel is burned off and weight goes down as the flight continues, which helps increase the overall range. For an electric, sadly, that's not an option (though electrics have other benefits!)
To find the range of an electric aircraft, you need to know the following things:
As you can see, the first several requirements are based on what you want: what are your requirements? The airplane-specific parameters, like drag coefficients, can be estimated using existing aircraft in the same class. Raymer's book has great resources for estimates for several parameters based on many comparable aircraft. The last few are calculated using some basic formula.
Let's do a sample calculation (and you can check the numbers to make sure they're reasonable):
I have not typed out the formulae here, let me know if you'd like me to, I can do so later today after work. The biggest thing to note (that isn't mentioned here) is that aircraft geometry is extremely important. If you were to increase the wing-loading and the aspect ratio, your range goes up dramatically. For example, if I increase my wing loading to 34lbs/sq ft and the aspect ratio to 16, the endurance goes up to 2.2 hours! Of course, that has other penalties: higher aspect ratios mean longer wings, which can increase weight because they need to be long and strong. A higher wing loading means smaller wings, which means if you lose an engine and aren't able to maintain airspeed, that small wing might have trouble keeping you afloat. I think it also hurts the stall speed.
Other note: this is for a conventional aircraft configuration. Electric aircraft should ideally exploit the properties of electric motors: that they can be extremely small! You don't need to have one massive engine up front, you can have several small ones on the wing. This reduces drag over the fuselage and increases the dynamic pressure over the wings, which in turn increases the lifting capacity dramatically. For reference, check out the X-57 Maxwell NASA is building using this concept (which they call "Distributed Electric Propulsion").
In Autonomy [1], the author seems to suggest that companies such as GM do realize there is a lot at stake.
​
I do think spending 1B+ for GM is substantial, especially since they may have to continue their spending if R&D takes longer than expected, but I don't think it will destroy them if they have to write it down.
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Tesla explained their business model in their Autonomy Day a few weeks ago. [2, 6] I am not familiar with Mobileye's plan.
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I personally am worried that Tesla will release their software without it being sufficiently tested (and users not appropriately understanding this). I tend to side with the plaintiff in this case (though my knowledge is limited). [3]
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At least one founder thinks there will only be a few successful companies, similar to how there are only a few commercial aircraft manufacturers [4].
​
Here are two projections of the economics [5, 6]. I don't remember how I felt about these values.
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[1], https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074SJ1HR1
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ucp0TTmvqOE
[3] https://techcrunch.com/2019/05/01/tesla-sued-in-wrongful-death-lawsuit-that-alleges-autopilot-caused-crash/
[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/SelfDrivingCars/comments/aaiek0/chris_urmson_were_going_to_end_up_with_less_than/
[5] https://ideas.4brad.com/robotaxi-economics
[6] https://ideas.4brad.com/teslas-robotaxi-economics
This book Driving With the Devil gives a pretty accurate representation of how NASCAR got it's start and has some great stories. I highly recommend it!
Very interesting stories, thank you for your post. If you're interested in this kind of thing, i reccommend this book
http://www.amazon.com/The-Yugo-Rise-Worst-History/dp/B0085SJ21M
My mom bought it for me as a joke and i started reading it not knowing what to think. i ended up finishing it and really enjoying it. Very similar story to the Yugo as to this car you posted.
The 1st time I saw the pic was in this book.
The caption reads "sumo wrestlers discuss a colleague's motorcycle while on a spring retreat at 99 beach, Chiba prefecture, 5 May 1966"
Based on my extremely limited knowledge of 1960s Japanese motorcycles, it appears to be a Honda C72 or C77 Dream with optional or aftermarket leg shields.
That was my assumption.
Amazon link for anyone who's curious. Great read on lean manufacturing.
Ten years before Elon Musk gave his rant about "the machine that builds the machine" toyota literally wrote the book on manufactering.
They created "The machine that changed the world"
It is the machine that builds the machine.
Tesla is not a leader in the automotive world, they are a lagger.
An overly expensive one at that.
Take a stroll over to Tesla Motors Forums and notice that they all have to wait months for simple repairs.
And Tesla just keeps saying we are young we will get better.... for TEN YEARS NOW.
>Don't you get it? You're demanding what no other company claimed or achieved.
What on earth are you yammering about now?
The chevy bolt is a fine electric vehicle for inner city driving.
And it don't cost 100K
>But I realize, maybe this is the wrong sub to call for realism
Like getting you to realize they don't know how to produce cars.
> I receive downvotes
I never downvote anyone, just argue with them while playing video games
I think you might like the book Streetfight. It was a huge inspiration for this video. It's by Janette Sadik-Khan and it's about how she transformed Times Square (and many others) in NYC from car-centric to people-centric. It's an amazing story of her battling NIMBYs and state DOTs and taxi companies and the media. And she did it the way I'm proposing: putting up some cones and seeing how people like it.
https://www.amazon.com/Empire-Clouds-Britains-Aircraft-Ruled/dp/0571247954
Anybody who is more interested in this topic should check out the book "Empire of the Clouds". It really goes into depth about the fall of the British aviation industry post-WW2.
Read Autonomy it’s about the upcoming of the self driving car race from an advisor for Waymo and former head of R&D at GM. Very fun and informative read
If you are really keen on driving in the UK think about spending £2.40 on a copy of DVSA Official 2015 Highway Code.
It is what all drivers should of read to pass their driving test in the UK. It will tell you how to handle roundabouts :)
HSR is a complex economic model(?). As speed increase, track forces increase equalling greater wear on the railhead. So read how the French, Japanese, and Germans for example came up with many solutions to achieve better economics.
The French for example started their HSR project in the 70's with gas turbine powered trains riding on a cushion of air. OPEC oil crisis drove them to electricity (plus some other interesting developments). They also figured out a way to make their trains run on conventional track in and out of cities and built new lines just for the TGV between city pairs. Japan started off slow with moderately HSR and overtime achieved greater speeds.
I'm smelling that you're looking to show someone or perhaps yourself that the CA HSR project is stupid or ill-advised etc because track maintenance will somehow be astronomical. Track is a sunk cost.. without it you can't do anything. Why do you think that the procurement process with Amtrak has sought to seek a European or Asian equipment vendor to supply non tier-3 compliant train-sets (light weight)? Equipment designed to our standards has been a failure (Acela) in that those train sets are too heavy, require too frequent maintenance (weight related wheel cracks), and can only achieve moderate speeds (160 mph)
You can find the similarities in highways.. the weight of freight trucks has increased damage to freeways and state arterials to the point that some states ban tandems and triples for example. Highway trust fund is broke, repairs are being made out of general funds...
Have a look at Europe’s high speed trains : a study in geo-economics / Mitchell P. Strohl ; foreword by Michel Walrave.. Its a very good book by an american in Paris who knows his stuff. You can get this book at any library. I also suggest TRB too for scholarly research on the matter as well.
Until superconductors are available for cheap and work at room temperature MagLev is a dead end. Its too expensive, too limited, and too one trick pony. You can't operate anything else on a maglev track.. Maglev track is different in its entirety
If you want to understand where Tesla is going wrong in their manufacturing and how it manifests itself as panel gaps and other assorted defects, then I can't recommend enough The Machine That Changed the World by Womack & Jones. Fantastically illuminating, this book details the rise of Toyota's lean production philosophy as opposed to GM/Ford's mass production process. It's not a dry book, whatsoever, it's a riveting read, first published in 1990 based upon a 5-year $5 million study done by MIT on the state of automobile manufacturing.
Tesla uses a few lean production principles, but in many ways -- from the outside looking in -- it appears as though they are stuck implementing the sames 1980s mass production principles that caused the U.S. automobile manufacturers to stumble and lose dramatically to Japanese manufacturers like Toyota.
Here's a few juicy tidbits from the book that contrast lean production vs. mass production.
Mass production mentality:
> Managers are headquarters generally graded factory management on two criteria -- yield and quality. Yield was the number of cars actually produced in relation to the scheduled number [...]. Factory managers knew that falling below the assigned production target spelled big trouble, and that mistakes could, if necessary, be fixed in the rework area, after the end of the line [...]. Therefore, it was crucial not to stop the line unless absolutely necessary. Letting cars go on down the line with a misaligned part was perfectly okay, because this type of defect could be rectified in the rework area, but minutes and cars lost to a line stoppage could only be made up with expensive overtime at the end of the shift. Thus was born the "move the metal" mentality of the mass-production auto industry.
Sound familiar? Management by production target causing a move-the-metal mentality... which causes assembly line workers to let defective parts and misaligned installation continue on through the line.
Ohno -- the architect of lean production -- understood why this was a problem:
> [Ohno] reasoned that the mass-production practice of passing on errors to keep the line running caused errors to multiply endlessly. Every worker could reasonably think that errors would be caught at the end of the line and that he was likely to be disciplined for any action that caused the line to stop. The initial error, whether a bad part of a good part improperly installed was quickly compounded by assembly workers farther down the line. Once a defective part had become embedded in a complex vehicle, an enormous amount of rectification work might be needed to fix it. And because the problem would not be discovered until the very end of the line, a large number of similarly defective vehicles would have been built before the problem was found.
And so he sought to rectify it with a lean production principle:
> When a worker found a defective part, he [...] carefully tagged it and sent it to the quality-control area in order to obtain a replacement part. Once in quality control, employees subjected the part to what Toyota calls "the five why's" in which [...] the reason for the defect is traced back to its ultimate cause so that it will not recur.
Every worker was also allowed and encouraged to stop the entire assembly line if they found a problem that needed to be corrected. Then all the workers would seek to rectify the issue such that it never happens again.
This philosophy causes growing pains. Toyota experienced constant line stoppage at the initial outset of their lean implementation. But since you address the root cause of every problem, eventually the line begins to become more reliable. So reliable, in fact, that Toyota was able to operate at 100% uptime in short order.
Most companies give up during the initial growing pains phase because it feels like you're not producing efficiently.
The proof is in the results though. With mass production you get:
> [...] the best evidence of old-fashioned mass production: an enormous work area full of finished cars riddled with defects. All these cars needed further repair before shipment, a task that can prove enormously time-consuming and often fails to fix fully the problems now buried under layers of parts and upholstery.
While lean production experiences:
> At the end of the line, the difference between lean and mass production was even more striking. At Takaoka, we observed almost no rework area at all. Almost every car was driven directly from the line to the boat or the trucks taking cars to the buyer.
Of course, lean production has many principles and philosophies, but when it comes to the assembly line itself and manufacturing it has two high-level features:
> The truly lean plant has two key organizational features: It transfers the maximum number of tasks and responsibilities to those workers actually adding value to the car on the line, and it has in place a system for detecting defects that quickly traces every problem once discovered, to its ultimate cause.
Once you finish reading this book, it should be easy to understand where Tesla lacks manufacturing maturity. I'm a huge Tesla fan. And I can only hope that they eventually fix all these problems. It's difficult for me to watch from the outside looking in.
I just picked up this book about this shipwreck.
Search the internet for 'x5 buyer's guide' to find results like these:
http://www.ebay.com/gds/BMW-X5-buyers-and-owners-guide-by-micrabits-/10000000010710610/g.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/2727671/Buyers-guide-BMW-X5-2000-2004.html
https://www.amazon.com/BMW-X5-Essential-Buyers-generation/dp/1845845331
There is also an xdrivers forum and other X5 forums where you can get more targeted advice from people who own them.
> I've been very interested in ideas like Toyota's かんばん
... Two interviews with the author:
ETA a paper worth reading: The Darker Side of Lean:
An Insider’s Perspective on the Realities of the Toyota Production System by Darius Mehri, 2006
The Official DVSA Highway Code https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0115533427/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_toKRCb9MTTK1V
You can also Google highway code and look it up online.
Hello! Here's a book that is fantastic, and it's cheap!
http://www.amazon.com/Driving-Devil-Southern-Moonshine-Detroit/dp/1400082269/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1289933281&sr=1-4
It's a great history of NASCAR. Hope this helps!
If any of you are interested reading more on some of the bikes in the photos like the Cabton, Meguro, Rikuo (Japanese Harley), and others you should check out this book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0824833287/
A very interesting story on the history of Japanese Motorcycles.
I've written a bit about cargo ships, and I found this to be very helpful: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B009LRWJKW?ie=UTF8&redirectFromSS=1&pc_redir=T1&noEncodingTag=1&robot_redir=1
Not sure yet, exactly. Whatever I feel like. I did just buy Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution a couple weeks ago, so I'm looking forward to digging into that. Because I'm a geek about street design.
Driving with the Devil is by Neal Thompson
I was also going to recommend it.
Here's a summary. Of course, the book that got me interested is here, The Machine that changed the World
I might as well start.
Skunk Works -- This is a memoir by Ben Rich of Lockheed's Advanced Development Programs division(AKA Skunk Works). If you're interested in aviation, I'd highly recommend it! Ben Rich lead the Skunk Works during development of the F-117 Nighthawk and the development of stealth technology(including a stealth ship for the Navy that never got the green light). He also worked on the U-2 Dragonlady, and designed the engine inlets for the SR-71 Blackbird.
The Machine that Changed the World -- I'm currently working on this one, so I don't have a fully developed opinion just yet. So far it's pretty neat. This is an expositional work about the Toyota Production System, and similar aspects of industrial engineering(dubbed Lean Production) that were developed in Japan after WW2. The authors have a tendency to proselytize it seems like, but maybe that's for good reason. It's not my area of expertise.
Heh, what is a "non-racing fan"? "Whoo-hoo, I'm a fan of these dudes not-racing!" ;)
Pick up Driving with the Devil, amazing book!
Let me know what you think. I especially love the comparison pictures between years. I think I'll definitely be getting the next one when it's in stock on Amazon.
The one I have (and you've ordered) covers the 2011 season, and part of 2012. The new one is out in November.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Formula-Technical-Analysis-2012-2013/dp/8879115790
edit: apparently the new one is released in 10 days according to here... http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Formula-1-Technical-Analysis-2012-2013-Giorgio-Piola/9788879115797
General Aviation Aircraft Design by Gudmundson
Amazon
Also, check out Nicolai and Raymer. You might also find Jane's all world Aircraft catalog useful.
The Yugo: The Rise and Fall of the Worst Car in History was pretty good. I know there aren't many Yugo fans in here but it's still a pretty interesting read.
Nascar history and a good read: http://www.amazon.com/Driving-Devil-Southern-Moonshine-Detroit-ebook/dp/B001RLTFMU/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1418389525&sr=8-4&keywords=nascar+books
For F1, the Sid Watkins books are great:
http://www.amazon.com/Life-Limit-Triumph-Tragedy-Formula/dp/0330351397/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418389580&sr=1-1&keywords=sid+watkins
http://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Limit-Sid-Watkins/dp/0330481967/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0XKAMY0KZ2Z47WF8JWC7
Read the Highway Code book, you can find it on amazon for cheap [here] (https://www.amazon.co.uk/DVSA-Official-2015-Highway-Code/dp/0115533427/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1497345002&sr=8-1&keywords=highway+code) and I used this website which was a huge help to pass my test: http://toptests.co.uk/
http://www.amazon.com/High-Mighty-Dangerous-Rise-ebook/dp/B001GXQOM8
I liked both department of mad scientists and rocketeers by Belfiore, with rocketeers being the better of the two.
> I wasn't in the wrong
Do you want us to start a go fund me to help?
Why do you want a SUV? Unless you're hauling feed to your livestock over muddy roads, they're totally inappropriate for the city. They get terrible mileage, they're not as safe as cars (well, the ones built on truck chassis), four wheel drive is unnecessary unless you're dealing with a lot of mud or ice, and they have a high center of gravity. When I lived in the Northwest, the first sign of winter was an Explorer on its side.
Read this if you want the dirt on SUVs.
I'd go with either a wagon or a minivan. Yeah, I know minivans have zero sex appeal. However, I've driven ones owned by my sister's family and have been impressed with them. Lots of cargo room, they have good safety ratings, decent mileage, they're incredibly practical, and while not the best motoring experience, they are pretty far from awful. They're really nice on road trips.
Personally, I'm single and have only owned coupes and sports cars, aside from the totally awesome 1959 Ford F-100 truck I had for a couple of years. But if I had to haul children or move a lot of stuff, I would be all over a minivan. They're immensely practical. Then go get a cheap old fun sports car, like a C4 Corvette or old RX-7 to have fun with.