After countless rumors, the Scuderia has finally made an official announcement regarding the team’s future driver lineup, with Sebastian Vettel confirmed as driver for the 2015 season. The announcement was made a few minutes after the team officially announced that Fernando Alonso will leave the team at the end of this season.

Fernando Alonso won the World Championship in 2005 and 2006 with Renault and joined Ferrari in 2010. If we are to trust all the speculation going around (which was right about Vettel), Alonso’s future destination will probably be McLaren, which he drove for in 2007. During his previous stint at McLaren, Alonso was team mate with Lewis Hamilton and the harsh relationship between the two was notorious, leading to the Spaniard leaving the team at the end of the season (both of them finished the season one point behind champion Kimi Raikkonen). As for who will be Alonso’s team mate next year, McLaren officials have yet to make a decision regarding Jensen Button or Kevin Magnussen, with an official announcement scheduled for December 1.

As for Vettel, the German driver needs no introductions after winning four consecutive Championships between 2010 and 2013. However, after the important technical changed in Formula One last year, 2014 was a disastrous year for both Vettel and Ferrari (both finished 4th, the German in the Drivers’ Championship, the Scuderia in the Constructors’). So will this move spice up things in our beloved sport? Hopefully yes, because the two-man show we saw this year can definitely get better and more exciting.

Following the 2012 scandal, when Hyundai and Kia were accused of breaking the “Clean Air Act” and of making fake mileage claims for some of their models, the two carmakers reached an agreement with EPA and the Department of Justice and will pay the biggest civil penalty in the history of the United States. The “Clean Air Act” was first introduced in 1963 as a federal law that controls air pollution and which forces carmakers to comply with EPA standards and to release the correct fuel efficiency numbers.

The penalty given to Hyundai and Kia is worth $100 million, but the two carmakers will have to spend an additional $50 million to establish an independent fuel economy certification group that will prevent similar things from happening in the future. But the part that will cost them the most will be returning a total of 4.75 greenhouse gas emission credits they claimed in the past, which are estimated at a total of around $200 million.

EPA administrator Gina McCarthy said that even though other carmakers, including Ford and Mercedes, were caught trying to bypass the system, these were minor compared to what the investigators found out at Hyundai and Kia. Officials from the two Korean carmakers admitted announcing fake fuel economy estimates for 13 models in their lineup starting with November 2012, after the differences were noticed during a set of internal tests made by EPA. When these allegations first showed up, Hyundai and Kia spent millions of dollars reimbursing car owners, especially with some of the models being fuel efficiency leaders in their segment according to the “official” numbers.

“This unprecedented resolution with Hyundai and Kia underscores the Justice Department’s firm commitment to safeguarding American consumers, ensuring fairness in every marketplace, protecting the environment, and relentlessly pursuing companies that make misrepresentations and violate the law,” Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.

Starting with November 1, the Electronic Stability Control system became mandatory for all new vehicles sold in the European Union that weight less than 3.5 tons. Starting with November 1, 2015, the new law will also apply to all other vehicles.

According to stats provided by Bosch, the company that invented the system and introduced it in 1995, 84% of all new vehicles sold in the EU were already available with ESC as standard. The system is widely regarded as one of the most important safety innovations in the history of the automobile and many reports showed that more than 80 percent of all crashes caused by the driver losing control could be avoided if all vehicles came with ESC. In 2011 alone, the system prevented more than 33,000 accidents and saved more than 1,000 human lives, according to another study by Bosch. These results were reported in the European Union only, in a time when the system was offered as standard on only 40 percent of new cars.

Ever since it was introduced in 1995 by Bosch and Continental, and it came as an evolution of another major safety innovation, the ABS system, developed by Bosch and debuted in 1978. Thanks to a range of sensors, the ESC system is able to detect when the car is beginning to lose control and break each wheel individual so that it would prevent and skidding. The ESC system prevented a total number of 190,000 accidents and saved more than 6,000 lives in Europe alone, while many of today’s assist and safety systems are based on the ESC’s sensors.

The German giant has just officially announced the opening of a new production facility in Tianjin, a large city in northern China. The factory will build DSG automatic transmissions for models sold in China and can produce up to 450,000 units per year, a capacity which is scheduled to be extended to 1.2 million units by 2016.

The Tianjin facility is Volkswagen’s 107 production site worldwide and it was finished after a $330 million (265 million Euros) investment. By opening this facility, Volkswagen created around 5,500 jobs in the area. According to the German carmaker, the DSG transmissions built in Tianjin will be used on the Chinese versions of the Volkswagen Tiguan, Golf and Audi Q3. The transmission will be used alongside the 2.0 TSI engine which is also being manufactured in China, at the Changchun and Shanghai facilities. Combined with the DSG transmission, the petrol engine gets better mileage and also has an important reduction in CO2 emissions.

According to the most recent edition of Manager Magazine’s annual list of wealthiest people in Germany, the Quandt family are now in number 1 spot, with a combined worth of 31 billion Euros (almost $40 billion). Johanna Quandt, 88, is the widow of German industrialist Herbert Quandt, the man responsible for saving BMW during its crisis in the 1960s and together with her two children own 46.7 percent in the German carmaker. The family are also important shareholders in several other German companies such as chemical maker Altana and graphite and carbon company SGL Carbon. The Quandts also managed to overtake the owners of the Aldi supermarket chain for the first time in 10 years.

However, despite their famous discretion, the Quandt family will never be able to escape their past. BMW was founded by Gunther Quandt who had strong ties with the Nazi regime and who controlled the company helped by his sons, Herbert and Harald. Actually, a recent study commissioned by the family showed that more than 50,000 slaves from labor camps were used in BMW factories. His wife, Magda, divorced him and went on to marry Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda and one of the most powerful man in Nazi Germany. Of course, this doesn’t mean

In case the iPhone 6 wasn’t flashy enough for Bentley drivers out there, the British carmaker has just announced the Vertu for Bentley, the first smartphone offered by the company. The phone costs 12,500 Euros (almost $16,000) and will only be available in certain Vertu stores in a limited run of 2,000 units. According to the official specs, the phone runs on Android (4.4 KitKat if you really want to know) and is powered by a 2.3 Ghz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 quad core processor, has an internal memory of 64 GB and a 4.7-inch sapphire crystal display that is resistant to scratches. Other features include a 13 megapixel Hasselblad camera with twin focus and dual LED flash, a frontal 2.1 mp camera and a 2,275 mAh lithium-ion battery that provides around 15 hours of talk time or 380 hours of standby.

The phone’s case is made of titanium and is covered by special leather with a manually stitched diamond pattern. The leather’s color is called “Newmarket Tan” and is specific to Bentley, being available for Bentley interiors. Just like with Bentley engines, the case features the signature of the person who built the specific unit, because no high-end phone would be complete without manual assembly. Of course.

Swedish magazine Teknikens Varld has been performing the so called moose test ever since the 1970s and each year they “abuse” most new models with results being awaited by anyone slightly interested in car safety. Last week, it was the Porsche Macan’s turn to avoid the moose, only that it didn’t perform quite as expected. According to the Swedes, the front wheels locks in the middle of the evasive maneuver and the car will go straight ahead instead of following the path and getting back to the original direction. In real life, this translates into more time spent on the oncoming lane or the side of the road. Of course, no point in explaining what this would lead to.

“The behavior is extremely strange, which we don’t see too often and we’ve seen it, unfortunately, in more Macans,” said one of the guys in the testing crew. The tested Macans were loaded according to the manufacturer’s specs and several tests were also performed with some of the weight off (around 150 kg/330 pounds), but the results were the same. Here’s the video released by Teknikens Varld:

The official reply came almost immediately from Stuttgart, Porsche releasing a short statement explaining the car’s behavior. According to them, this the issue is not actually an issue, but a safety element that prevents the car from rolling over. The car’s behavior is a result of the Active Rollover Prevention (ARP) feature, when the priority is not to keep the car on course but to keep on all four wheels and stop it from flipping over.

Here’s a quote from the official statement: “The function (ARP) is applied for a maximum of 300 milliseconds, depending on the driving situation. This short intervention ensures the directional stability of the vehicle. Lateral displacement is negligible. For this reason we do not regard this driving state as critical. As the video shows, lane changing can be completed stably and safely. What is more critical in this situation is if the vehicle were to roll over or the rear were to break away. The vehicle demonstrated none of these instable states (rollover, oversteer, wheel lift) at any time.”

Yesterday, the Japanese carmaker announced an important milestone in their hybrid saga, by selling their 7 millionth hybrid in September. Toyota is the world’s undisputed leader in hybrid cars sales, their 28 hybrid models sold in 90 countries achieving impressing sales results.

By far the most popular and successful hybrid is the Prius, responsible for almost half of the total 7 million units sold so far. Actually, if we also take into consideration the Prius+ and Prius C models, the total number of sales for the Prius lineup is 4.7 million units. The figure released by Toyota also includes sales for Lexus hybrids, the most popular models of Toyota’s luxury brand being the RX SUV (400h and 450h models) with 305,000 units and the compact CT 200h, with more than 200,000 units (208,000 to be more exact).

Toyota started producing hybrid cars in 2007, when the Prius was introduced, a model which will basically become synonym with “hybrid car” in the following years. While sales were nothing impressive in the beginning, it slowly started growing and if the carmaker sold 53,000 in 2003, ten years later, in 2013, they sold 1,280,000 units, which is an amazing progress.

The announcement comes after another important milestone, on Monday Toyota announcing that the 9 millionth vehicle was built in Europe. The Japanese carmaker’s European production facilities include six automobile factories and three engine plants, which produce two of the three Toyota models currently available on the Old Continent.

The first Toyota factory in Europe was inaugurated in 1971 in Portugal with the purpose of assembling the Corolla for the European market. Today, Toyota has production facilities in Portugal, United Kingdom, Turkey, France, Poland, Czech Republic and Russia and most of the units built here go to the local market, but officials mentioned that some production is also exported outside Europe. Starting with 1971, Toyota invested more than 8 billion Euros in their European manufacturing facilities and current workforce consists of more than 20,000 employees, while the carmaker’s 400 suppliers and other European partners also employ 94,000 people, including the sales network.

As you probably saw on TV or read about it online, Jules Bianchi is currently going through the most important race of his life so far, fighting for his life after the horrific crash at Suzuka. The Marussia driver lost control of the car in the Dunlop Curve, the same corner Sutil where had crashed the lap before. But instead of hitting the tire barrier, he violently hit the tractor that was deployed on the track to remove Sutil’s car. He was immediately transported to the circuit’s medical center, where it was decided his injuries were too serious for him to be transported by helicopter, so he was taken by an ambulance to the Mie University hospital, 10 miles away from the track.

Here is a video of the crash, but beware, it’s pretty brutal (the crash is at around 1:10):

There aren’t many official details about Bianchi’s condition, but officials announced that CT scans showed what they call “severe head injury” and the operation ended at 10:40 pm local time. The only “good” news were that even though he still is critical, Bianchi is not on life support and his state is stable. Doctors announced that the next 24 hours are crucial for the 25 year old French driver. The wave of support from fans and celebrities all over the world is huge and our thoughts are with Jules and his family and we’re really looking to bringing you some good news as soon as possible.

Bianchi’s uncle, also Formula One driver, died on the track at 34

Jules Bianchi was born on August 3, 1989 in Nice, the beautiful French city on the famous Cote d’Azur. He entered Formula last year, joining Marussia, after being a test driver for Ferrari (2011) and Force India (2012). So far, his most notable performance in motorsport is winning the Formula 3 Euro Series in 2009. An interesting coincidence is that last year, at Suzuka, Bianchi crashed in the first lap, after colliding with Giedo van der Garde, both drivers being forced to retire.

Also, he is the grandson of Lucien Bianchi, a Belgian driver who raced in Formula One between 1959 and 1968. He died when he was 34 years old during a test session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans race.

Massa, saved by the helmet in 2009

The French driver’s crash is the most serious accident in Formula One since Felipe Massa was extremely close to a tragedy back in 2009. During qualifying at Hungaroring, the Brazilian driver was hit by a part of the suspension system from Rubens Barrichello’s car. Massa was hit right in the head by the flying part, lost conscious and went straight into the barriers. However, following a long surgery, the Brazilian made a complete recovery, but everyone agrees that a tragedy was extremely close.

Detroit consulting company IHS Automotive has recently published the results of a study that analyzed how effective are modular platform for cutting development costs. IHS estimated how much money will be saved by carmakers that have already implemented this type of platforms based on forecasts made for 2020. In that year, industry analysts anticipate that global sales will be at 27.8 million units, a significant increase compared to the 19.2 million vehicles that will most likely be sold this year. The researchers took a look at the most popular (best selling) ten platforms and the results showed that Volkswagen and Renault-Nissan will be leaders in this category.

Modular platform offer a great way for carmakers to reduce costs, despite being quite risky in case of unexpected costs such as a service recall. These possible recall costs are getting higher and higher as more vehicles are sold. However, even with these recall risks, carmakers are saving a lot of money by sharing research and development costs and thanks to the cost reductions, many technologies will be available cheaper and faster to the consumer.

Like we mentioned, the carmaker to benefit most from these modular platforms is Volkswagen, whose MQB platform could be a huge winner on the long run. The platform is already being used by Audi, Volkswagen, Seat and Skoda, with plenty of additional models already being scheduled. The platform was unveiled for the first time in 2012, on the seventh generation Volkswagen Golf and more than 5.8 million units built on this platform are expected to be sold in 2020. But that’s not all, because Volkswagen’s smaller version of the modular platform, the MQB A0 will also sell around 2.2 million units, which brings Volkswagen’s total to around 7 million units.

Second most successful modular platform will be Renault-Nissan’s CMF2 platform which is or will be used on popular models such as the Renault Clio, Nissan Juke, Nissan Micra or Nissan Note, with a total number of 3.5 million units to be sold in 2020. The French-Japanese carmaker will also have the fourth most popular modular platfor, the CMF1, which will be used for models such as the Nissan Rogue/Qashqai and the Renault Megane, with estimated sales of 2.7 million, bringing the group’s total number to 6.2 million.