World's biggest tech show saved from being soulless by nuts flying boat and harvester horsepower

This week's Consumer Electronics Show – CES 2026 – is the world's biggest tech event, it's in Las Vegas and it had some sexy toys; so we had to go.

But it bleakly demonstrated the future isn't about speed, sound or skill. It's about data, efficiency and machines that don't need us anymore. The only question left is whether we're building transport to move humans, or platforms that tolerate us as passengers.

Naturally, the official nude portrait painter to the royal family (except two) and I weren't in sin city for puerile distractions like Fantasy: The Strip's Sexiest Tease or The Empire Strips Back: A Burlesque Parody or Australia's Thunder From Down Under. But we are told if you purchase a VIP Experience to meet the beautiful people of Fantasy you get an exclusive VIP badge, a private meet and greet, and a photo with members of the cast!

The Sultan's pic was better than mine.

CES: Where horsepower goes to die

CES used to be about gadgets. Now it's where machines quietly lose their souls. All are converging on the same idea: a silent, sensor-stuffed, software-defined appliance that moves things efficiently while removing every last trace of mechanical personality.

Engines are out, updates are in, and horsepower now lives somewhere deep in a settings menu next to "dark mode".

But here are the bright spots:

Navee WaveFly 5X: the flying drinks cooler

The Navee company is primarily known for its electric scooters but last week it previewed a two-seat, electric-powered boat-aircraft that isn't content just skimming the surface like most of us – it glides on water and actually gets airborne for short hops, blurring the line between boat and flying machine.

In other words, this isn't your dad's fishing tinny with solar panels stuck on it; it's an adrenaline-inflected, aviation-tinged take on personal marine mobility that screams "toy first, utility second". Only put a six pack of Cooper's Sparkling Ale in this Esky given that getting high takes on another meaning here.

Longbow Speedster: a Lotus gatecrasher

And then there was the Longbow Speedster – a reminder that not everyone at CES has completely lost the plot. Low, light and unapologetically driver focused, it looked like a Lotus that had wandered into the wrong convention centre and refused to apologise.

No loungeroom interior, no productivity promises, no talk of "mobility ecosystems".

It's just a small, fast, slightly mad machine which still believes driving should be fun, not optimised. Who doesn't like a standing start to 100km/h in just 3.5 seconds?

John Deere X9 1100: 515kW of harvest violence

One thing that unites Australians is horsepower and the outback (and Cooper's).

That's why the Sultan and I rated the John Deere X9 1100 as the star of the show.

The big-gun combine is a farm machine that combines (pun intended) throughput and real-world grunt.

It's not a robot that parks itself or shouts at you about your calendar; it's a 690Hp high-capacity harvest beast built to eat wheat, canola and corn for breakfast.

This thing has a 460-bushel grain tank, unloads at more than five bushels per second and pairs dual separators with a massive cleaning shoe so it can chew through hectares fast.

At 515kW, the X9 1100 is making more shove than two current V8 supercars bolted together. And unlike a race car, it does it all day, not for 250km followed by a Champagne spray.

Its engine size is 13.6l which is roughly three LS V8s' worth of capacity, except instead of burnouts it's converting paddocks into export income.

The grain tank holds 16,200l which is about 11 household rainwater tanks, or enough wheat to keep an inner-west sourdough bakery in business for the rest of the decade.

RM, Ferraris and other healthy addictions

That's why we're flying from Las Vegas to Phoenix to Paris for the RM auctions in Louvre Palace's spectacular Salles du Carrousel on January 28.

Mick has extended the credit on his bank card so he can bid on the 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competizione "Tour de France" by Scaglietti, which placed first overall at the 1956 Tour de France Automobile and is the actual car that instituted the "Tour de France/TdF" nomenclature; it was raced and owned by the legendary Marquis Alfonso de Portago and it is the fifth of only seven Scaglietti-bodied first-series competition Berlinettas.

Mick says if he can get it for $25m he's a winner.

But on the way we are stopping off at Arizona Biltmore for RM's Longhorn Collection auction on the 23rd. It's headlined by two of Ferrari's "big six," LaFerrari and F50.

Built to celebrate Ferrari's 50th anniversary, the 1995 Ferrari F50 is being offered for a lazy 15m.

Ferrari's ultimate hybrid hypercar, the 2015 Ferrari LaFerrari, is a steal at $8m. Created to honour Ferrari's 16th Formula 1 Constructors' Championship (will it ever win one again?), the 2009 Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M is a rare, race-bred open-top celebration of Ferrari's motorsport heritage. It's at a JB Hifi price: $1.5m.

Bottas in Adelaide

Talking of the Fezzer company, one of our favourite drivers, 10-time grand prix winner Val Bottas, 36, of McLaren Vale and Monaco, will drive a Ferrari Formula 1 car for the first time at the 2026 Repco Adelaide Motorsport Festival on March 1.

As the gossip pages would say, the mullet-haired Val joined cricket-loving Aussie Oscar Piastri, 24, to watch England's absolute failure in the Ashes. Oscar had a pic taken with the victorious winners, the Australian team.

Bonus rort: Hertz

Not enough space to do our Hertz saga justice so that's for next week – except to say our telex to Hertz Global HQ worked and we got a reply – some backwards and forwards and an apology with the offer of a freebie.

Of course, as I tried to explain I pay for everything, so freebies don't cut it unless they are offered to the readers who have had similar problems. Those emails next week.