#london

Driving in downtown London may be getting a little more difficult. There’s talk of banning older cars from parts of the UK capital if they don’t meet certain emissions requirements.

Audi City, the brand’s premium shopping experience in London is now open and hoping to capitalize on the in-style idea of boutique car shopping.

BMW has a strong presence in London for the 2012 Olympics, recently unveiling its pavilion that will be seen at the Olympic Park. The German automaker will also have its collection of art cars exhibited for the first time in the UK from July 21st to August 4th.

Recently as last January, we heard that the MINI Rocketman concept had been shelved, but a press release from the company is suggesting otherwise.

The extravagant  MINI Goodwood sports an  exorbitant price tag and is now on display at Harrods in London.

London’s world famous department store will have a MINI Goodwood on display from April 8 to April 22, celebrating the delivery of the first customer cars. Co-developed by the infamous  Rolls-Royce design team, the car features luxurious amenities that would normally be seen in a Rolls-Royce.

Pump up your tires and pump up your tank, there’s a new kind of fuel in town thanks to the Dearman Engine Company.

Well, that’s not totally true. The fuel is actually air in liquid form, so it isn’t actually new, but the London-based company that formed just under a year ago has managed to develop an engine that runs on it.

The system works by storing air at -256 degrees Fahrenheit in a tank before pumping it into a cylinder with what Dearman calls a heat exchange fluid. Once inside the chamber, the liquid air rapidly expands to propel the piston in the same fashion as a traditional internal combustion engine. The coolest part is that the system’s exhaust only emits air.

Tech stories about revolutionary new systems aren’t all that rare and they usually end by essentially saying “it’s really cool, but don’t expect it to ever be mainstream” and while that’s probably still the case here, Dearman is quick to point out that their motor relies solely on existing materials.

Truth be told, the air is actually just an energy catalyst. That means automotive applications would require a secondary power source to keep the tank chilled. It also seems that liquid air used as fuel would slowly disappear from cars that sat for a long time.

The system is currently being tested for real-world feasibility, but if it proves to be a workable system we speculate that it could play into a new gasoline or electric hybrid drivetrain somewhere in the future. If it ever happens, you could be “gassing up” with an air compressor while you check tire pressure. Watch the video after the jump to learn more.

[Source: CNET]

The controversial London (UK) Emissions Zone strikes again, this time with more stringent smog rules due to come into effect on January 3rd, 2012.

What does this “27% better” get you? Well, Toyota says, the Prius plug-in takes 27% less fuel than a diesel after a full charge, which takes around 72 minutes. As a city car, the Prius excels in small, slow journeys: the tests in London show that the average journey has been 7.3 miles at around 17 miles per hour. In electric-only mode, the Prius plug-in can drive 12.5 miles, but that hasn’t dissuaded owners from pushing the official limit—22% of drivers went beyond this figure, all the way up to 62mph.

You’re going to need a boat to chase down this ice cream man. Float on up to the HMS Flake 99, the world’s first amphibious ice cream truck.

Making its way down the Thames in London, the Flake 99 was named after an ice cream treat and commissioned by Cadbury to celebrate Britain’s National Ice Cream Week (otherwise known as the best week ever!). If you’re a London boater, make plans to be on the water and pick yourself up a double scoop. There are even plans to possibly bring the Flake 99 several vacation beaches and even to Venice.

Making it a bona fide ice cream truck is its traditional-style megaphone that serenades boaters with a jingly tune. You’ll see it coming a kilometre away  thanks to its “Give us a wave!” suggestion painted on the side. There’s no word on how it handles the waves or how easily its engine gets flooded.

Watch the Flake 99 in action after the jump.

[Source: Inhabitat]

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, wants the U.S. embassy to cover the costs the president’s motorcade has racked up driving through the city’s downtown core. The U.K. capital has special traffic congestion fines for vehicles caught on the roads without the proper permission, and Obama’s limo (aka “The Beast”) falls in the group, as do the rest of the vehicles in his motorcade.

Even Jaguar have tried to revive the E-type design in recent history with cars like their XK, but have failed to capture the elegance and beauty of the original.

Residents of Britain’s largest City were surprised to see a life-size car made out of Play-Doh parked up on a street this week.

Current London Mayor, Boris Johnson, has revealed plans for the city to install 1,300 Electric Vehicle charging stations within its boundaries. This new network of stations, known as Source London, is planned to be put in place by 2013.

In perhaps the ultimate example of schadenfreude, more details have surfaced surrounding the story of the turquoise Koenigsegg and Lamborghini that were given the boot outside the ultra-ritzy Harrods department store in London.

It turns out that the owners of the supercars were also members of the Qatari royal family, the owners of Harrods. Most people take some joy in seeing the wealthy get taken down a peg, but when you consider that they just bought Harrods for $2.3 billion, it almost makes sense for them to park in an illegal but convenient spot. Not only can they afford to pay the fines, they can probably afford to abandon their cars and buy another one if it proves to be more expedient than waiting for a traffic warden to come remove the device.

[Source: Jalopnik]

New proposals like a London-style “congestion charge” and highway tolls for special lanes that would move faster are being floated both in Canada and the United States, as major cities grapple with traffic problems and infrastructure that wasn’t meant to deal with an increasing number of cars.