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Woman sent to psych ward because police didn't believe she owned a BMW

A woman is suing New York City after she spent eight days in a mental hospital because, she claims, police didn't believe she, a black woman, could own a BMW. Last year, Kamilah Brock was pulled over in Harlem, NY, for having her hands off the wheel, PIX 11 reported. She says she told officers she was dancing while stopped at a red light at the intersection. Police took her into custody and held her for several hours. When Brock was released from the 30th Precinct without any formal charges, police told her she could pick up her car the next day. When she arrived at the impound lot and told officials she was looking for her car - a 2003 BMW 325Cl, she knew there was something wrong as soon as she requested her vehicle. "I just felt like from the moment I said I owned a BMW, I was looked at as a liar," Brock told PIX 11. "They put me in handcuffs and said they just need to put me in handcuffs to take me to my car. And I said OK, whatever it's gonna take to get to my car." Then EMS arrived. She was taken to Harlem Hospital psychiatric ward where she says she was pumped with sedatives and given powerful drugs. Doctors believed she was suffering from bipolar disorder, she claims, and tried for days to get Brock to admit she didn't own the luxury car. They also tried to convince Brock that she wasn't really a banker and President Obama didn't really follow her on Twitter, though both facts are true. The worst part? She was stuck with a $13,000 hospital bill for the pleasure. Brock is currently suing the hospital and several unnamed police officers. Neither the NYPD nor the City's Law Department commented on this story due to ongoing litigation. Government/Legal Weird Car News BMW Ownership Videos lawsuit

BMW now wants to build 'ultimate machine driver'

The lines between the auto industry and Silicon Valley have been blurring for a while now. Google, for example, is hiring people from deep within the automotive world to spruce up its autonomous driving project. Apple is doing the same, and Tesla's sort of on both sides. More examples are easy to find. That's why it's no surprise, really, that there's a movement happening behind the scenes at BMW to reinvent the roundel. Speaking at the Geneva Motor Show this week, BMW board member Klaus Froehlich told Reuters that the Bavarian automaker is refocusing its sights on Silicon Valley. The goal, Froehlich said, is to have half of BMW's research and development staff to be computer programmers. Their mission: to build the AI that will maneuver upcoming self-driving BMWs. In other words, after 100 years of building what the company calls the ultimate driving machine, BMW is shifting over to the ultimate machine driver. We should've seen it coming with that autonomous driving video last year. Many automakers are working on autonomous cars these days, and this is all nothing new for BMW, but Froehlich's comments show an increased focus on cars that will drive you. "For me it is a core competence to have the most intelligent car," Froehlich said. "Our task is to preserve our business model without surrendering it to an Internet player." Some of the tasks that Froehlich sees for an expanded software team will be developing better cloud connection, so that a self-driving car can get messages from a central network. It means perhaps licensing BMW's plug-in powertrains to smaller companies that maybe can't build their own but have other strengths that BMW can access. By developing its own staff and working with partners – the same strategy automakers have used for years – BMW is trying to get ready for the autonomous future. Related Video: News Source: ReutersImage Credit: Harold Cunningham/Getty Images Green BMW Technology Emerging Technologies Autonomous Vehicles Electric Future Vehicles bmw i research and development klaus froehlich

BMW i3, i8 sales strong enough to reach almost 17,800 in 2014

BMW makes its futuristic i brand vehicles – the i3 and i8 – at a plant in Leipzig, Germany. But the customers most willing to buy one of these plug-in cars live in the country where the lightweight carbon fiber used in the body structure is made: the United States. Speaking at the Detroit Auto Show this week, Ian Robertson, member of the Board of Management at BMW AG, said, "The US is already our largest market for our electric vehicles, the BMW i3 and BMW i8. Worldwide, we sold close to 18,000 BMW i models last year. Nearly three-quarters of these sales occurred in the second half of the year, when the global rollout – including the US – really got underway. Demand for these vehicles continues to be high and I'm delighted that we've been able to increase production to meet that demand." That sounds great, but the numbers aren't huge. BMW sold 6,092 i3s and 555 i8s (for a total of 6,647 i vehicles) in the US last year. Globally, BMW sold over two million vehicles in 2014, and 17,793 of those were plug-in i vehicles (16,052 of the i3 and 1,741 i8s). The production increase wasn't huge. BMW was making just 10 i8 vehicles a day at the beginning, but doubled that to 20 last fall. Since last spring (around April or May), the company has been making over 100 i3s a day, BMW spokesperson Verena Von L'estocq tells AutoblogGreen. Getting production right this first year has meant slow going, but "We're comfortable now," she said, adding that BMW expects more production increases in the future. Related Video: