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.
That looks like it could hold at least a few gallons of clam chowder.
How much shrimp cocktail?
BMW is leaving money on the table by not offering the frunk as an $18 per month subscription.
I’m sorry, are the BMW people aliens? Because here on Earth actual humans know there is no such thing as enough storage. Have you ever in your life heard a non-alien being utter the words “This closet/garage is too large”? No, no you haven’t. I’ll even wager you haven’t heard an alien being say that because little green men need some place to keep their flying saucers and laser guns too.
This post kind of went off the rails, much like BMW’s reasoning about frunks.
Zeee Germans (BMW & Mercedes especially) are still designing their electric cars with a legacy mindset. Their ICE cars are all front engine & therefore there is no frunk.
I have to think their logic is…
plenty (or enough for them?) of people buy their ICE cars w/no frunk, so why should their EVs have a frunk? He’ll Mercedes intentionally makes it hard to even access under the front hood on the EQS!
Despite the fact that it is clearly possible as Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, Ford etc. have proved.
Besides none of their EVs make any money for them so I’m sure they view this as a frivolous, entirely unnecessary, additional cost, competition be damned.
“The problem is that on their newer electric cars, they simply haven’t bothered to even try, even in the most perfunctory way, “
I suspect this may partly be due to them being rushed into production so they can compete with Tesla.
And as a result, they didn’t have time to sweat details like offering a frunk.
It was definitely the case with the Ford Mach E… when Sandy Munro did a teardown on it, it was clear that there was a bunch of unnecessary and way overspecc’d stuff because Ford used a lot of off-the-shelf parts from the Escape to get it into production faster.
Just wait till some guy at BMW hears about mini storages. “Wait, people pay a monthly fee to have a small storage space?! Muahaha.”
You know, Jason, if you really, really, cared about frunks, you would organize a change.org petition to get an extra $50 added to the IRA tax credits for people who buy EVs with a frunk.
I would sign that petition.
I get a chuckle from VW, master of the frunk in a previous life, not having one on the ID4, but it’s platform mate e-tron does. It’s just slapdash engineering if an F-150 can have a massive one yet these ‘luxury’ brands can’t seem to organize their tubes and wires good enough to provide a nice extra spot for hold things like EVSEs and cables and such.
Gosh, the frunk on my 411 alone was so long and cavernous that it got named “Nasenbär” (coati, or literally translated: “nose bear”) by the locals. Bring back BIG FRUNK, VW.
The ID4’s platform mate would be the Q4 e-tron which also doesn’t have a frunk, the larger e-tron is still on the ICE-based MLB platform and even then the frunk doesn’t seem to be that large.
You mean the Audi LA French Turd? 🙂
Despite the name it is a nice looking car
BMW should be ashamed of a LOT right now
They make the grill and the hood the size of a building but they can’t use that space for a frunk !
I think this is part of the problem.
The engineers recognize how butt-ugly the current grilles are, but they have no influence over management in terms of design. So they refuse to design frunks in a desperate attempt to minimize the time owners spend in front of the cars, hoping they don’t eventually realize what a horrible mistake they made subjecting humanity to the beaver-toothed monstrosity they drive.
“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.”
So, if rear trunk space is measured in the standard unit of dead hookers are you proposing that frunk space should be measured in dead Torches?
Plot twist: It’s the same unit! Torch worked his way through college as a hooker.* 😀
*: This is, as far as I know, not true.
BMW is too busy trying to figure out how to upsell M stickers and body kits to everyone than to care about actual, useful stuff.
These will not be legal in Florida because Florida is where Wokeby goes to die.
came for Woke jokes, leaving satisfied
Why not, it’s where half the east coast and upper midwest go to die.
Might a group of companies that make aftermarket frunk kits be called Frunkytown?
Nah thats the store where you buy these. Its a subsidiary of 4 Wheel Parts
At this point, BMW know that they can do whatever they want an people will still buy their cars.
Make the grill so ugly that people physically recoil upon seeing it? People still buy them.
Don’t bother installing a frunk, so buyers have to buy an after market one? People still buy the cars.
Charge subscription fees for every possible extra? People still buy them. And subscribe.
It seems like they could add a laser that tattoos “I’m an idiot” across the forehead of anyone who drives one, and people would still buy them.
Exactly. They don’t because they don’t have to.
Their entire schtick is openly mocking their customers while selling them inferior products. It makes more sense for their mission not to have a frunk than to have one. Hell the fact that Torch brought it up might be enough for them to remove all cargo space from their cars entirely and go U MAD BRO?!?! on Twitter.
They could literally make a rolling porta potty that seats 1 and has planet sized kidney grille stickers haphazardly thrown and the conspicuous consumption crowd would still line up around the block to lease them…
This actually seems to me what they currently are all about. It’s like “FUCK YOU; WE ARE BMW!” I know that that has appeal to certain people, mostly assholes.
They’re working on a way to make it accessible on a subscription basis.
Came here to write this, but was 99% sure someone had beaten me to it.
I could have been a contender!
“the rear cargo area was large enough for anyone, and I shouldn’t care about a frunk”
Reminds me of Henry Ford, who insisted that his Model T was all the car anyone would ever need, and therefore there was no need to update it.
No! What BMW should be ashamed of is the lack of a frunk. Even if they they had a factory frunk that size what could it hold? A portable jump starter and some jumper cables maybe. But guess how most BEV frunk releases are actuated… VIA THE 12V BATTERY! So it defeats putting either of those in there for the most part.
IMHO if you have a frunk it should have enough room for a full size spare, basic tool kit, jumper cables, etc. and the frunk release should be manual, not electric.
It also needs a release handle on the inside in case a small child gets trapped in there.
Would also not be surprised if there is some DIN standard that needs to be updated to make proper use of such space in vehicles that do not have engines in the rear.
My daughter was one reprimanded by her fellow kindergarteners for using a sand shovel to play in the snow…
It needs a sealed lid though, so it doesn’t fill up with dust and dirt
Does cramming stuff into formerly open spaces affect the crash performance at all? Especially in the front?
Crash energy is dissipated as things deform. If things are crammed into space that formerly provide room for that deformation, does it instead stop the deformation and transfer that energy back into the passenger cabin?
In the 1990s, my dad was once saved from a lot more serious injury by having a whole ton of tires crammed into the trunk of the car he was driving when he got rear-ended.
So – depends what you put in there, I guess. A tungsten cube likely isn’t going to help.
I was wondering how many PBR I could fit in there. So let’s go with that.
And I bet a trunk full of nitroglycerin won’t help either!
You remember that very unsettling guy who used to do those commercials for the ShamWow?
One of the lines he used was “You know the Germans always make the best stuff.” BMW’s ideal customer — probably the only customer they really care about — is someone who would actually fall for that line.
This frunk talk reminds me of a game we used to play at my old job:
imgur.io/a/Bzc48Pz
Can You Fit In The Front Of A Porsche?
So what you’re saying is, we want the frunk. Give us the frunk. Ow. We need the frunk. Gotta have that frunk.
The Frunk, the whole Frunk, and nothing but the Frunk.
Let us in, we’ll tear this mother out (andputanaftermarketfrunkkitinit)
This is not a test, do not adjust your stereo (stereo adjustment subscription required)
Take your COTD and politely frunk off.
All frunks should be large enough to carry rarely-used components that we carry every day: flat tire kit, spare charging cable, first aid kit. Anything else is a bonus. Getting these out of the rear allows people to cram their own stuff everywhere.
This seems to be somewhat of a theme with automakers these days. Why solve a problem at the expensive of their own engineering and manufacturing costs when the aftermarket will solve it for them? And better still, at the consumer’s cost.
It’s at the consumers cost either way. Just, if the manufacturer does it then ALL consumers of that car pay for it as it is rolled into the development cost before they apply their margin requirements. In the aftermarket, only the consumer that actually wants the thing pays for it.
Unless you think engineering and manufacturing costs don’t affect the price of a car?
No, I’m aware of most/all the intrinsic costs related to automotive development, so the thought crossed my mind.
At worst, the manufacturers are being lazy, at best, they simply don’t care. Or they believe that they can’t recover the costs enough to justify further development. Kind of like putting new windows on your house before selling it, or new tires on a cheap car before selling it. You rarely get your costs back out, so it’s not worth it. And yes, I just conflated the automotive business to selling a house or a car on Marketplace.
My guess is that there is just not enough demand. There are plenty of things they COULD do and chose not to.
Also, for BMW to do it and provide the level of refinement necessary for a BMW feature they would have to do a lot more. Such as, remote operated motorized hood. Hood open sensors and a way to report that to the driver. Etc. BMW would never just shove a plastic tote in there and have their customer use a trunk release lever. So their cost is probably higher than these aftermarket people that are slamming a plastic bin in there.