Diesel car sales are way down, but the stinky stuff is still the fuel of choice for many van operators due to a diesel engine’s durability, efficiency and long range. Maybe not for long though.

Kia’s new PV5 Cargo electric van has just set a Guinness World Record after traveling 430.84 miles (693.38 km) on a single charge.

Related: This PV5 Is VW’s Idea Of A VW ID. Buzz

That would be a solid, though hardly newsworthy feat in a car, but it’s more impressive in a brick-shaped van (albeit a slippery one) whose official range is only 258 miles (415 km). And it borders on a miracle when you learn that it was achieved while carrying the PV5’s maximum payload of 1,740 lbs, or 790 kg.

The record wasn’t a lab test or a hypermiling stunt. This was a real-world endurance run, conducted north of Frankfurt, Germany, under the same urban and extra-urban conditions any delivery van might face on a long working day – or two.

Behind the wheel of the PV5 were commercial vehicle journalist George Barrow, and Christian Nigemeier, a senior engineer at Hyundai Motor Europe Technical Centre.

Over the course of the 22.5-hour challenge, the duo completed 12 loops of a 36.2-mile (58.2 km) route, complete with traffic lights, roundabouts, and an elevation gain of 1,210 ft (370 m).

The record-breaking PV5 was in stock form, but fitted with a 71.2 kWh battery, the larger of the two available power packs.

A smaller 51.5 kWh battery is also available for businesses who don’t cover a ton of miles in a day or want to get anywhere in a hurry – it’s only rated for 184 miles (296 km) and takes 16.2 seconds to reach 62mph versus 12.4 seconds for the 71.2 kWh version.

The PV5 is the first member of Kia’s Platform Beyond Vehicle (PBV) family, built on the brand’s new E-GMP.S architecture, the commercial vehicle version of the platform used in passenger cars like the EV6 and EV9.

Like combustion commercials it’s designed for modular flexibility and can be ordered as a panel van, chassis cab or minivan.

Kia

Ferrari has dropped the first details about its maiden EV, next year’s Elettrica crossover, and some people might be wondering if, by doing so, it’s dropped the ball as well. Because while its peak output will be over 986 hp (1,000 PS / 735 kW), Ferrari has confirmed it will not make as much power as the new breed of rapid Chinese electric cars.

“You can see on the market some electric cars that already have 2,000 horsepower,” Ferrari product boss Gianmaria Fulgenzi told media.

Related: Ferrari’s EV Mystery Prototype Teases Breadvan But It’s An Illusion

“It’s very easy and simple to create that power with an electric engine. So you can see in the market a lot of companies that have never done cars, and now they’re able to produce a car with 1,000 horsepower.”

Fulgenzi didn’t mention smartphone firm turned automaker Xiaomi by name, or its 1,526 hp (1,547 PS / 1,138 kW) Xiaomi SU7 Ultra. But it’s the car that most obviously springs to mind, and we know that Ferrari recently had its hands on an SU7 at its Maranello HQ.

He could also have been thinking of the BYD’s 2,977 (3,018 PS / 2,220 kW) YangWang U9 Xtreme, which this month recorded 308 mph (491 km/h) at VW’s Ehra-Lessien test track, beating the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+’s record.

Super-Power EVs Are “Elephants”

“But what is the joke? What do you feel when you drive this kind of car?” he asked journalists, per Auto Express. “They are elephants because you need very big engines and a very big battery.”

Let’s leave aside the elephant in Fulgenzi’s room – the Elettrica’s huge 122 kWh battery dwarfs the ones in the SU7 and U9 – and look at the other figures.

A combination of a 282 hp (210 kW / 286 PS) front axle from the F80 supercar and 831 hp (620 kW / 843 PS) from the rear motors will give “more than” 986 hp, Ferrari says, enough for a 2.5-second zero to 62 mph (100 km/h) time and electronically limited 193 mph (310 km/h) top speed. Those are still impressive numbers in absolute terms, but won’t set the Elettrica apart from the crowd.

It’s kind of funny to hear a company like Ferrari, which for years pushed power outputs, acceleration and top speeds to new highs, talking about how pointless the fastest modern cars are. But Fulgenzi is right: we (and automakers) seem to have crossed a line here in terms of power and performance and don’t know how to stop.

Why? Because horsepower, top speed, and 0-60 times are the metrics by which we’ve judged performance cars for decades. Remove them and we’re kind of lost, unless we actually get a chance to jump behind the wheel and experience them ourselves.

It’d be difficult to explain to a potential customer why they should buy your car if it made less power and was slower than the one they already have (though Detroit had to do that during the emissions-strangled 1970s), so automakers keep pushing. And for years, that was fine.

When you traded in your naturally aspirated E46 330i that required 6.5 seconds to get to 60 mph for a turbocharged E90/92 335i that did the job in 5.5 seconds, you could feel the difference, and that could be fun.

How Much Is Enough?

But when even fairly ordinary electric cars like the $54,990 Tesla Model 3 Performance can get to 60 in 2.9 seconds, you have to wonder how much longer automakers can keep pushing in this direction. Beyond bragging rights, there’s little extra benefit in having a car that accelerates more quickly than that.

And definitely none to insurance companies, because an uptick in accident rates is surely inevitable if we keep going. Rarely mentioned today is that crippling insurance premiums had as much to do with the death of the original American muscle car in the early 1970s as tightening emissions regulations.

Related: Ferrari’s New Playground Might End Maranello’s Favorite Spectator Sport

Anyone who lifts weights for recreation might recognise a parallel in all of this to men’s bodybuilding. From the mid 1990s, partly off the back of the use of new drugs like insulin and growth hormone, the guys competing in the top tier literally exploded in size, shifting the focus from aesthetics to freak-show levels of mass.

It was, and still is, fascinating to see what the body can achieve when pushed to the limit, in the same way that it’s impressive that a BYD can do 308 mph. But more recently we’ve seen a huge boom in the popularity of the Classic Physique division, whose shapes hark back to the “golden era” of bodybuilding, when men like Arnold Schwarzenegger still looked super, but also human.

Stepping Back From The Speed Wars

Andrea Canuri for SHProshots

Is Ferrari (of all people) leading a similar shift in the car world with its Elettrica (seen above, testing)? If it is, it wouldn’t be the first time it’s turned its back on the battle to have the biggest numbers.

Although the F40’s 202 mph (325 kmh) top speed broke new ground, for the past 25 years Ferrari has capped its fastest cars at 217 mph (350 kmh) and was content to let Bugatti build cars that ate up a drag strip in less time. That decision in no way diminished Ferrari’s credibility in the eyes of enthusiasts.

But letting other brands make everyday crossovers that are more powerful, accelerate more quickly, and cost less, while also still not publishing any other metrics like a Nurburgring lap time to show us how the sum of the car, including its chassis and brakes, is more important than the schoolyard stats? Now that’s a bold move.

And it’s one that’ll really test Ferrari’s brand strength, particularly among younger buyers who are less familiar with Maranello’s history – one built in large part on cars that were the fastest and most powerful of their time.

Can you see an end to the performance wars? Do you think legislators might eventually step in to curtail the madness? What is the sweet spot for power and acceleration anyway? And is Ferrari right to take its foot off the gas? Throw a comment down below and let us know your thoughts.

Ferrari hasn’t released any exterior images of the Elettrica yet, but it has given us a peek under the skin at the battery and motors, which you can see in the gallery below.

Ferrari

The electric super-sedan rivalry just tilted in a new direction. Lucid’s Air Sapphire has claimed the title of the quickest-accelerating production car Motor Trend has ever tested, beating not only Tesla’s Model S Plaid, but also Porsche’s Taycan Turbo GT.

What makes the feat even more impressive is that the Air Sapphire managed it while being larger, heavier, and more luxuriously appointed than its rivals. The secret weapon, as it turns out, is rubber. Well, that and boatloads of uninterrupted power.

Breaking the Two-Second Mark

After jumping behind the wheel of a 1,234hp Air Sapphire fitted with Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS Elect LM1 tires, now offered as an $8,250 option plus installation straight from Lucid, Motor Trend recorded a 1.881-second sprint to 60 mph (96 km/h).

That’s noticeably faster than the Air Sapphire previously tested with the standard Michelin Pilot Sport 4S LM1 tires, which needed 2.2 seconds to hit 60 mph.

Watch: How Fast Can The Lucid Air Sapphire Lap The Nürburgring?

For comparison, the publication recorded a 2.07-second 0-60 mph time in the Tesla Model S Plaid. Until the Air Sapphire came along, the Taycan Turbo GT Weissach was the king of MT’s acceleration tests, recently hitting 60 mph just 0.006 seconds slower than the Lucid. Importantly, all of the times were recorded on an unprepped surface and include a one-foot rollout.

Motor Trend hasn’t said how quickly the Air Sapphire is without factoring in rollout, but tests of the Model S Plaid and Taycan Turbo GT show rollout adds about 0.2 seconds to the 0-60 mph time.

Stretching Its Lead

Down the quarter-mile, the Air Sapphire, priced at $250,500 and rising to $258,750 as tested, opens up a bigger gap on the competition. It had previously run a 9.21-second time at 157.1 mph with the standard Michelin tires, but fit a set of the stickier Pirellis and it takes just 9.03 seconds to launch down a 1,320-foot drag strip.

The new rubber also help in braking and handling. The EV needs just 93 feet to brake from 60 mph, which is the same as the Taycan Turbo GT Weissach and 10 feet less than the Air Sapphire with standard tires. It also ran around MT’s figure-eight course in 22.3 seconds, a 0.3-second improvement over a previous test, but slightly slower than the Porsche’s record-breaking 21.9 seconds.