Well, it used to be a sweaty, sleep-deprived, and ludicrously expensive business, this whole "breaking car records" malarkey. You'd need years of practice, enough cash to rival a small nation's GDP, and the kind of preparation usually reserved for space missions. But now? It's turned into a sibling squabble. A tech-savvy Tom and Jerry, if you please. Just when we'd finally managed to wash the taste of Pininfarina Battista's speed records from our mouths, its overachieving twin, the Rimac Nevera, comes screeching in.

Remember the good ol' days when smashing a speed record meant blasting through driveshafts every 10 seconds, gearboxes every couple of minutes, engines every quarter-hour, and a treasury worth of cash every hour? Yeah, those were fun times. But electric cars? They've made it all seem like a Sunday drive to the pub. Buckle up, poke some buttons on a laptop, lick an ice lolly, and off you go. It's like watching an incredibly dull video game, if you don't believe me, check out this video from Rimac:

Now, the smart blokes in suits want us to believe that it was all as easy as pie. "Just push a button and vroom!" they'd say. I don't buy it for a second, I bet their engineers haven't slept in weeks. Watching the Nevera hit 400 km/h (a cheeky 250 mph for the Queen's English) is a bit like trying to comprehend the plot of Inception. The 0 to 100 km/h (62 mph) dash is so blindingly quick it's almost pointless. It's like trying to watch a ninja fighting a cheetah on caffeine.

The Pininfarina Battista held the record last November, zipping from 0 to 100 km/h in a dizzying 1.86 seconds, but the Nevera comes along and scoffs, "Hold my beer," doing it in 1.81 seconds. You might not notice it, but it's the automotive equivalent of the Beatles topping Elvis. The 0 to 200 km/h record was also snatched from Battista by Nevera with a 0.33-second advantage. It's like watching a race between two photon particles.

The all-important ¼ mile? That was over in a mere 8.26 seconds, leaving Battista's 8.55 seconds huffing and puffing in the dust. But the real stunner was Nevera's sprint to 400 km/h (or 248 mph if you like it in Queen's units) - it did it in a heart-stopping 21.32 seconds. That's like going from zero to Japanese bullet train in less time than it takes to tie a shoelace.

The previous record for that dash stood for 6 years. Bugatti Chiron, with all its might and glory, managed 400 km/h in a staggering 41.96 seconds back in 2017. Nevera's time? Less than half of that. It was like swiping a lollipop from a baby.

So, how long will the Nevera's new shiny record last? That's a question for the Pininfarina Battista crew, a team of Italians who hate backing down from a fight more than they hate pineapple on pizza. Remember when, six years ago, the Bugatti Chiron was hailed as the wonder of the world, the king of petrol-guzzling beasts? Well, six years later, Rimac didn't just outrun Bugatti on the road. They own them in the boardroom too. And if that isn't a power move, then I don't know what is.

So, there you have it, folks. The world of automotive speed records now feels more like an electric playground for tech wizards. Two 'green' siblings are exchanging blows, trading records as if they're Pokémon cards, all the while making those petrol-throbbing titans of yesteryears look like they've been caught napping in the slow lane.

Remember the time when speed was all about thunderous exhausts, the smell of gasoline, and a sprinkle of fear? It's all very different now, as the age of the electric hypercar is not just knocking on the door, it has stormed in, plopped itself on the sofa, and is busy raiding the fridge.