It’s fun to imagine which vehicle would be best for surviving the zombie apocalypse, but what about something designed to deal with actual disasters?
Gibbs Amphibians has found a niche building truly all-terrain vehicles like the ATV/jet-ski-hybrid Quadski, but its latest project is a little more serious.
The company has licensed its Humdinga amphibious truck to Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd (ST Kinetics), in the hopes that it can be put to work during tsunami relief efforts.
The 12-year deal will allow ST Kinetics to produce and sell the Humdinga in Asia, where it is expected to be marketed to first responders as a fast patrol vehicle. Think of it as a smaller, nimbler version of the World War II DUKW.
The Humdinga is 21.5 feet long and is powered by a turbodiesel engine. On land, it has all-wheel drive and disc brakes, and can manage “highway speeds.” For water cruising, the wheels retract into the body/hull, and a jet propulsion system is used, allowing the vehicle to operate in shallow water.
In the water, the Humdinga has a top speed of 30 mph. Gibbs says it is the only amphibious truck that can exceed 9 mph in the water, although the list of other amphibious trucks probably isn’t that long.
The Humdinga can carry up to seven people or up to 1,653 pounds of payload. Since it can do that virtually anywhere, it really does seem like the ideal disaster-response vehicle.
Gibbs holds several patents for its amphibious-vehicle technologies, and hopes to sign more licensing agreements in the near future. So perhaps we’ll see more floating cars (and trucks, and quads) soon.
Apple won the PC market’s worst quarter, but that’s not the entire story. It won the race by stumbling less than everyone else.
PC makers shipped just 57 million computers worldwide in Q3, which might look good, but it’s a 21% year-over-year plunge (via Counterpoint Research). And despite Apple’s Mac shipments falling by 11%, to 5.6 million, its market share rose from 8.7% to 9.8%. How did that happen?
Update (October 22 23:54 PT): In response to our query, GM clarified that offline recording support is already available on eligible vehicles. Like Tesla's Sentry Mode, it requires owners to connect a USB drive to save incident recordings, which can be viewed on the vehicle's infotainment screen. The upcoming Connected Cameras feature will build on this by giving owners remote access to these recordings via the revamped OnStar app, allowing them to check footage without walking out to their car.
General Motors has announced plans to add a new Connected Cameras feature to its OnStar service starting next year, giving drivers a way to monitor parked vehicles remotely and capture footage of certain incidents.
Missing out on the self-driving future is a tough pill to swallow, especially as a car enthusiast. But that is what Tesla handed us on Wednesday, without a hint of mercy.
During its October 21, 2026 earnings call, Elon Musk told investors the Cybercab is meant mainly as a ride service. Further, nearly all of them will be owned and managed by Tesla.