I tend to fetishize a number of automotive details, most likely the result of growing up with leaded gasoline and adoring the smell of those old metal-barreled magic markers. Among these details are taillights, turn indicators, door handles, and, of course, trunks. Especially front trunks, now commonly referred to by the portmanteau frunks. You know, like Frookies. Frunks have become quite common on many electric vehicles being made today, thanks to the packaging opportunities made possible by the now nearly ubiquitous skateboard-style EV platforms most carmakers use. And yet, for some reason, one country in particular has carmakers that don’t seem to care about frunks, and I find this odd. That country is Germany, so let’s talk about the seeming Teutonic disinterest in frunks.
Just so we understand how pervasive frunks have gotten in the EV space, here’s a partial list of mainstream EV makers that are selling cars and/or trucks that have some sort of cargo compartment up front: Ford, Tesla, Rivian, Kia, Hyundai, Volvo, Polestar, Chevrolet – there’s a lot. It’s by no means all, but it is a pretty significant number of mainstream EVs.
Now, it’s not that these frunks necessarily offer so much extra cargo room (though some, especially the ones found on electric pickup trucks, certainly do) but more that the extra space is useful for things that tend to rattle around in trunks anyway: tire inflation equipment, first aid kits, maybe a blanket, brake fluid bottles, rags, ice scrapers, you know, utility stuff that I bet you have in your car right now.
And, for EVs, there’s always the issue of charging cables. Sure, most EVs, frunked or otherwise, have a compartment beneath the usual cargo area for them, but if you’re on a road trip and you need access to your 120/240V charging cable (and let’s be honest, if you normally charge at home or in public charging points, on a road trip is when you will be most likely to need them) you really don’t want to have to unpack all your stuff just to get to the cables. A separate cargo compartment is great for all this sort of stuff.
They’re just useful! They may not be a deal breaker, but if there’s an open volume of space inside your car somewhere, why shouldn’t it be available for your use?
That’s what bothered me about the Volkswagen ID.4 when I tested it. There absolutely was enough room under that hood to house a useful frunk, and I know this to be true because I tested it out by packing a lot of stuff in it and driving around:
It’s not just me who thinks there could have, perhaps even should have been a frunk in the ID.4. People are talking about it on owner forums, and there’s even some basic frunk kits being sold, made in part from recycling bins:
Clearly, some people agree that there could have been some extra cargo room in there. And it’s not just VW; BMW, which did have a frunk in their first EV, the i3, has gone frunkless for their more recent EVs like the i4, something that has baffled our pal Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained:
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He’s right to be frustrated. It’s not like the i4 couldn’t have had a frunk roughly equal in size to the Tesla Model 3’s useful frunk, it’s that BMW just seems to not have bothered. The empty volume is there, as Jason demonstrated on his car, fitting that whole carry-on bag into that open void under the hood. A little bit of hose re-routing and some sort of plastic tub set in there, and boom, the BMW i4 could easily have a front cargo area big enough to be genuinely useful.
So why don’t they? And why does it seem to be primarily German cars – BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen – that seem so resolute to not give a damn about frunks?
Well, I suppose there is one significant German car exception: Porsche’s Taycan EV does have a frunk, but that makes sense, as Porsche has a long history with frunks. I mean, if you think about it, Germany has likely produced more frunks over automotive history than any other car-making nation, mostly thanks to tens of millions of rear-engined VWs, but there were also Porsches and NSUs and other rear-engined makes, too. They have real funk heritage. Frunkitage. Which just makes the current seeming anti-frunk stance all the stranger.
I get that frunks aren’t free; there are absolutely material and engineering costs associated with installing a frunk. You have to plan out the volume of space, you have to have it lined with some sort of durable material, you need to seal it off enough to keep the contents dry and filth-free, it makes maintenance and repair trickier – there’s more factors than you might think.
And, this would be a fantastic argument for why frunks just aren’t worth the effort, except for the fact that so many other carmakers have, you know, figured it out just fine. And I’m pretty certain that if Kia can solve the complex engineering challenges of being able to store some crap under the hood, BMW can damn well figure it out, too.
I’ve asked representatives of BMW and Volkswagen about this, right to their faces, and I got essentially the same answer from both companies: what the hell do you need a frunk for when we have so much room in back?
I mean, on one level, they’re not wrong; none of the cars I’ve been talking about has a meager trunk or cargo area by any means. VW also said they used that volume to house components to push the passenger volume more forward, and make it larger, and while I suppose that may be true, it’s not like any of the frunked cars have cramped passenger volumes and it doesn’t answer the question of the dead volumes of space present under the hood of the ID.4, for example.
Here’s my problem, though: it doesn’t matter that the rear cargo areas are generous. That’s not the point. When so many other carmakers have figured it out, it feels like those other carmakers give just that much more of a shit about you than the carmakers that didn’t bother to provide any storage at all.
I’m not saying it’s entirely rational; but cars and why we buy them has never been rational. All I know is that when I find that a Hyundai Ionic 5 has carved out a strange, little volume of space up front where i could stash some charging cables or tire chains or wet bathing suits or something like that, I feel like some engineer or packaging designer actually gave a shit, and tried their best to make my experience with the car as good as possible, giving me access to volumes of space in that car because I deserve it, dammit.
With the BMW i4, I’m hauling around a big empty void that nobody at BMW could be bothered with to make useful for me, their dedicated and loyal customer. Something about that rubs me wrong.
I know the strange coincidence of the big German automakers not bothering with frunks isn’t because of engineering issues. If they wanted to, they absolutely could do what carmakers from the US, South Korea, Sweden, and China are doing. And, I suppose you could say the same about Japanese EV makers, though Honda’s new Prologue, based on GM’s Ultium platform, might have one, but so far that’s not been revealed.
There’s some sort of ideological reason going on here. There’s two schools of thought: the customer should get to use whatever volumes of space we can carve out, or the customer doesn’t need some dumb little compartment under the hood. One is a bit more focused on giving the customer options, the other based on steering the customer to what the carmaker thinks is best, or at least good enough.
I think this is worth discussing, and I’ll keep asking the frunkless carmakers, German or otherwise, for their reasoning.
Because someone has to.
They shouldn’t care about frunks with electric cars. That being said that’s because cabover/cab-forward is the best car layout and such a layout does not have the extra length in the front for a frunk.
However if you’re going to have a stupidly long hood like most BEVs nowadays it makes sense to give them a ton of frunk space.
Germans are decent drivers, who can park their cars with the back end inwards.
That way they don’t have to reverse with a cold engine, and visibility is better when you are leaving the parking space.
What’s wrong with reversing with a cold engine?
It’s not like the engine spins backwards.
If you are driving a Messerschmitt KR200 it is! 😉
The thought (myth) is that it’s one less cold shift for your trans. Of course you are correct that your engine could care less.
Why aren’t we talking about the cock fight taking place in the Mach E’s frunk?
Right? Following a Frunk Focus Group’s decidedly pro Cock-Battle response, I just assumed that the German manufacturers capitulated under the weight of the Poultry Welfare Lobby.
They’re just not done over-engineering the concept yet. Once they can make that a frunk space that’s an absolute mechanical wonder to behold when it’s all working (and a hugely expensive pain in the ass to replace when it’s not), then they’ll show you. Show you all.
The Germans were exactly the same way about cupholders for the longest time.
To them, drinking and driving meant any beverage and was therefor verboten.
I’d like to propose the Hatchfront.
Or continue that line of thinking to a hatchfront hatchback.
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“Especially front trunks, now commonly referred to by the portmanteau frunks.”
Using the word “portmanteau” in an article about automobile trunks is either a coincidence or a product of the weird and wonderful mind of of Jason Torchinsky, wordsmith to the easily amused. 🙂
Corvair Rampside begs to differ.
I just realized that the Rampside has no frunk!. Of course if it did, it would be full of legs.
Dear Jason – please do a special expose on the eGolf’s absolutely phoned-in packaging under the hood. It is an abomination. So much wasted space, such a missed opportunity. While I recognize it was largely a test mule for the then-future MEB (specifically the ID3 and ID4), it’s so abhorrent as to fill me with rage every time I see the hood of one.
Which is often, because I own one.
You are welcome to borrow it so you, too, can be enraged at the complete lack of fucks VW gave when they put this thing together.
BTW – I adore the car otherwise. It’s the ultimate urban-area commuter. But goddamn balls ass that space is infuriating.
If you’re willing to sacrifice battery capacity for a frunk, then fine. Most people aren’t though. And when the entire floor of the vehicle is the battery, the high voltage modules have to find a home elsewhere and the obvious location is the front of the vehicle.
Theoretically, that seems plausible. Empirically, lots of other carmakers have managed to provide useful frunks and good range at the same time. Empirical evidence beats theoretical reasoning every time.
I’ve always thought there’s one super obvious reason to have a frunk: to store charging cables. Like, sure, I could put them under the false floor in the trunk, but what if I need to charge and I have a bunch of stuff in there? Putting the cables in a silly little pouch that just sits in the trunk seems compromised, too. A frunk doesn’t need to be very big and allowing for cable storage up front means that the rest of the cargo area can be used for only cargo.
I have to wonder if the Germans of a certain age, those late in their careers and at the C-suite level, associate frunks with a sort of dated, frumpy uncoolness that attaches to things that were common but clearly on their way out when they were young and Beetles, NSU Prinz and the like were driven by the old and the broke.
I love having the frunk if only to store valuables. It is just too easy for car thieves to break a window, reach in, and grab a backpack or bag. When things like that are in the frunk they are out of view and it is at least a little harder for someone to get in. Nothing is theft proof but a window smash and grab literally takes under 10 seconds. Using a crowbar to lever open a frunk is going to take longer and is harder to do in the open during the day.
I dunno, one time when I worked on Bourbon Street a thief apparently walked up to a parked car right in front of my open storefront, slipped a flatbar out of his sleeve, pried open the door of the car with a single deft twist of his arm, stole something, and then closed the door and kept walking, all so casually and in such a short timespan that I literally didn’t even notice it happening right in front of my eyes. (I found this all out later.) If they can do it to a door, they can do it to a frunk. Frunks do keep things out of view though, of course.
tbh the Tesla frunk you can just cut it with a knife, that’s how thin that sheet metal is.
I’m inclined to think that because of the low popularity of cars with separate ‘trunks’ in Europe, the German carmakers think their customers don’t consider a frunk that important in EVs either.
I wonder if frunks are here to stay, or if they’re just a transitional feature on the way to some other automotive design paradigm. After all, frunks only exist because with EVs, the whole hood area is essentially superfluous.
That part of the car came into existence because it was a convenient way to package a vehicle with an internal combustion engine, not because there’s some immutable law of vehicular design that says cars have to have a big vaguely-rectangular area in front of the driver. That entire front box no longer needs to exist, but (rightly or wrongly) automakers believe that the buying public wants EVs that look pretty much like ICE cars.
Will this continue, or will we one day admit that the hood is vestigial, and ditch it in favor of some new, more space-efficient design? Will we see one-box SUVs and crossovers? Will vans become the norm? Will we start to see pickups like the Jeep FC, Corvair Rampside, and whatever that thing is that Canoo says they’re going to make?
Or will we decide that we love frunks, and keep making cars that have them even though it is, let’s face it, less space-efficient to have two small boxes at either end rather than one big one?
I don’t know, but I think we’re going to find out. Right now, EVs are mostly aping ICE designs. That won’t continue forever. Early cars looked a lot like horse-drawn carriages, but modern cars don’t. It’ll be the same with ICE vs. EV, but who knows what we’ll eventually end up with! Time will tell.
I suspect the box will continue to exist, because you still have to enclose the front suspension and steering column, and also have room for a crumple zone structure, while still allowing the driver a direct view forward. A stepped setback from the front works for all that, but we probably will see it become even stubbier and more vestigial than it already has in the FWD era, eye pleasing proportions be damned.
Think about the decades after “horseless carriages” became popular that cars still looked like carriages without horses.
Sure we need crush space. But why not have protuding round buffers in front, like European rail wagons (use to?) have? So Dymaxion body, big crush buffers in front. Good driver vision, like a cabover (and unlike a brodozer). You can pretend you’re driving a 1930s German locomotive.
On the Mercedes EQS, not only is there no frunk, but the owner isn’t even allowed to open the hood. I think Audi has some ICE models that you can’t open the hood, either. There’s something interesting going on here with the Germans.
This is such a German thing… I worked at the American office of a German auto supplier, and we had so much friction with our German counterparts, they hired an Austrian guy to give us a 2-day seminar on understanding Germans. He was in high demand in the early Aughts around Auburn Hills, MI… Once someone in a position of authority makes a decision, they are rarely challenged – so it’s very likely someone high in a design dept declared frunks to be pointless, and that has filtered down through their organization, and into most other automakers in Germany.
This is spot on.
I saw a similar thing from Audi (I think) about not having one-pedal driving on their EVs, where they basically said customers don’t want it. Nah…seems like someone at Audi just decided it wasn’t going to be something that they were going to do.
Germans and not challenging Austrians in positions of authority go hand in hand.
My German friend took a car to the dealership because it still ran when the gas gauge said it was empty. Obviously a broken gas gauge.
Just to be clear – this isn’t a poorly veiled jab about authoritarianism. German schooling is rigorous, so when you graduate you are assumed to be an expert in your field (even if you aren’t, yet). What they value is expertise, so someone who has worked their way to a high-level position will not be challenged by many people, if any.
Purely anecdotal, but have seen this reflected across industrial suppliers as well.
German vendors frequently just don’t understand why you might want to use their equipment in a slightly different way to what they planned.
well, we’re quite busy with our work here so each has to do their part. It allows us to focus better. If the guy responsible for trunks said no frunks, the other guys will work with that. It’s also because we don’t want to antagonise our colleagues but mostly because we like clear responsibilities and decision-making. And we take it that nothing is being said without good thought behind it (it’s rarely the case here in Germany – so if there is no good thought behind your affirmations you’ll suffer at work later). To contest something you’ll need to clearly articulate your problems with it, so you’ll need to spend extra time there.
On the other hand yeah, it can give birth to monsters, look at how BMW’s designs are since 2000s, obviously nobody challenging those inept designers at work.
I miss frunks too in German BEVs.
They should go one step further and give the frunk the option to be climate controlled.
Also – the trunk of the Honda Ridgeline with its ability to function as an ice chest is *chefs kiss*.
And make the climate controlled frunk able to hold a pony keg.
My Corvair frunk has drain plugs. I like to fill the entire frunk with ice as a beer chest. Makes a great ice breaker, as it were.
An EV without a frunk is a bummer.
Or, in the case of the i4, a Bimmer.
Frunks are fantastic for carrying things that smell. They are usually completely separated from the interior space of a vehicle. Because they are usually smaller, they are also great places to put things that you don’t want sliding all over the place. It’s much easier to put something in a frunk and toss a couple of rolled up towels around it to keep it in place than it is to manage the same thing in the much larger space of a trunk.
Bringing home pizza? Put in the frunk. Your car won’t smell like pizza. Your pizza won’t slide all around in your trunk, or leave a grease spot on your interior. Bonus — when you put your pizza in the frunk while a 10 year old kid watches, confused about why there isn’t an engine there, you can tell them your car runs on pizza and blow their minds. Ask me how I know. 😉
Thee is probably some stigma placing your stuff next to those reservoirs of fluids.
Speaking of which, what are all those reservoirs on the Ionoic?
brakes, washer fluid, and..? I know EVs usually have liquid cooling, but I though those were all sealed systems.
The Hyundai has two different, customer accessible if they get low, types of coolant. One for the batteries and one for the motor(s).
In my 914 the only problem with the frunk was spilling gasoline on the frunk contents if you weren’t careful because the gas tank and filler were just sitting in there.
I also wondered about any rigid objects in there and what they might do when the crumple zone crumpled.
You’re doing the Lord’s work, Torch. Keep on those Frunkless Fools. If you’re persistent enough, they’ll be forced to Give a Frunk, and then it’ll be Frunks for all!
Frunktastic!
I was wondering if lack of frunkage was due to scar tissue from converting an ICE platform, but I guess not… So instead I’m going with my theory that the Germans aren’t really as on board with EVs as they want us to think. They just don’t seem to care as much as others.
All that said, GM also seems to also not be fully on board with frunks in their non-truck EVs. The Lyriq lacks a frunk, and GM has stated that frunks don’t test well in their focus groups. Valid excuse, but I’d still like to know more about that. Do people feel weird putting cargo under the hood? Is the hood a less convenient place for things, compared to the hatch area? Are there crash or heat concerns? So on and so forth.
I suppose frunks don’t really add anything other than storage volume to the average vehicle, but on trucks it gives a properly weathersealed cargo area without needing a bed cover.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that, historically, very few car owners even know where their bonnet release is…let alone being routine bonnet openers. Therefore, the Germans are being quite ruthlessly logical in their approach to frunks.
Though they could be carefully considering a high margin optional extra for their EVs too….a €600 frunk kit. That’s what I’d do if I was a car maker!
Yeah, I had a similar thought. You have to treat the frunk the same as a trunk and offer the same sorts of ease of opening features, as Ford has done on the Lightning. But if you just leave a traditional hood (or bonnet) release, many people won’t use it.