A while back I wrote about how I believed that German automakers who are building EVs somehow don’t seem to give a brace of BMs about frunks, and that drives me bonkers. One of my automotive fetishes is space utilization, so when I know that there’s large, usable volumes of space being wasted in a car, it hurts. And BMW does a lot of hurting with their entire current line of EV cars, which have tantalizing volumes of space that they refuse to make available to their loyal customers, for reasons I can’t begin to guess at. Happily, there’s brave frunk-warriors out there selling the bits needed to make a front trunk that BMW somehow left out.
It’s not like BMW doesn’t know how to make a frunk; not only did they have them on the old BMW 700s, their bold and innovative earlier EV, the i3, had a small yet functional and very appreciated little frunk:
I know they know how to make frunks. That’s not the problem here. The problem is that on their newer electric cars, they simply haven’t bothered to even try, even in the most perfunctory way, to permit the empty volumes under the hood to be reclaimed by their rightful owners. So, the aftermarket has stepped in.
I’m not specifically endorsing any particular company, but this one, Wokeby, happened to catch my attention. They seem to specialize in BMW i-series cars, with trunk kits for the BMW iX3 and i4. Here, look at these installation videos so you can see just how substantial the frunks they make actually are! First, the iX3:
That’s a good-sized frunk! Here’s the i4 one:
That’s big, too! You can fit plenty of things into either of these frunks, especially stuff like EV charging cables that would otherwise be taking up space in the rear cargo area, possibly under all the other stuff you’re carrying in there, making it wildly inconvenient if you actually have to get them, because then you have to empty out everything else. The kind of situation you might be on a roadtrip or something.
It’s not just about the extra space, it’s about having an additional, separate space.
When I spoke with designers and engineers at BMW about this, I was told – with a bit of what kind of felt like condescension – that the rear cargo area was large enough for anyone, and I shouldn’t care about a frunk. This, of course, is maddening. There is absolutely no technical reason why BMW couldn’t have made frunks just like these from the factory – likely they could have done it even better.
It’s just arrogance at this point! Stop denying your customers the space they own, BMW! These aftermarket frunk kits should cause you shame! A kit should be sent to every current frunkless BMW EV owner with a fruit basket and apology letter as a proper factory frunk is being developed!
And in this competitive EV market, where so many of BMW’s competitors do have frunks, it seems like madness to build these cars without them. It’s technically trivial, and the space is already there, unused, being dragged around by the car anyway – an enclosed volume that could be helping the owner. There’s no reason to ever assume a car owner doesn’t need more space – they paid for the enclosed volume of that car, and if there’s space that could be used for humans or cargo, the owner should, morally, have access to it.
Yes, I’m going to die on this hill. And then I’m going to demand my corpse be wadded into a ball and crammed into the front trunk of some car, dammit, because that’s how it should be.
Herr Torchinsky we of the Aryan master race have determined this is the ideal layout of our car. Trust your superiors. Otherwise you may end up a corpse stuffed in a small space sooner than you think. Verstanden?
As a long time BMW motorcycle owner, that attitude is exactly what I expected. Great stuff, but they can be in deep denial about aspects and problems.
“BMW is where Wokeby goes to die.” – Klaus DeSantis
Own? Nope. The frunk will be a subscription service.
Stop paying, and it closes like the waste compactor out of Star Wars, destroying anything you have stored in it.
I think they most likely don’t want to deal with the extra cost of making sure, the what ever stored there doesn’t get damaged or damage the electric components there. I mean with 3rd party frunk if some soda bottle decides to explode and wreck havoc there, it’s no concern to BMW.
And personally I would just like to see the trunk area maximised. My main use for car is to haul large objects and friends for hobby stuff. So hopefully we see big ass wagons from volvo and wolkswagen in the future (ID7 apparently has also wagon variant coming up).
I think what’s even more maddening is that BMW has a relatively normal-looking iX3 that it refuses to sell in the US.
Is BMW using the space for sound deadening or any other features? It doesn’t look like much is there, but I could see them being cheap by slapping some sound deadening in there and blaming that on no frunk
Ignoring the consequences of your actions is not a good business model.
Hell that’s not even a good way to live.
That’s how 40 year olds have heart attacks.
Yeah, just keep sitting at your computer smoking, obsessed with social media, BMW.
I would rather walk, thanks.
BMW should install these standard at the factory, but have an electric latch that’s disabled, preventing access to the trunk by anyone other than dealer service techs, unless you sign up for the monthly frunk subscription service
BMW: “Genius! When can you start?”
We should go British and call it the Front Boot or Froot
I just want to know if we have to keep calling this space a “frunk”. Should we start calling rear trunks “runks? Webster defines the trunk as “ the luggage compartment of an automobile” with no specification on the location of said luggage space. Now that we can have a front and rear trunk, we need to specify. I packed my charging cable in the frunk so I have room for groceries in the runk.
BMW should have listened to Parliament, man…
Shut the frunk door.
Wokeby have been doing this for a while for the i3, offering a rear extra boot under the boot floor where the petrol engine goes on REx models. They also offer a sealing lid for the i3 (BMW supplied!) frunk, so imagine they’ll get round to offering the same for the frunks they’re producing.
I could really use the extra storage for my i3, but £300 for a (admittedly bespoke, engineered) bucket is hard to justify at the moment.