Frunk Thoughts or Engineering Disaster

[SteelClouds]

So who thinks about a Frunk? Most of us assume there is one.. I mean, we used to put engines there right? Now the engine is gone and at worst, there is a small electric motor and some supporting electronics.

Being curious, I poked around some.. this is what I have found so far and it's been pretty eye opening how poorly some of the engineering has been done so far.

Tesla being Tesla has become synonymous with the term "EV" and "Frunk". So lets take a look at whats inside their Frunk

We have a battery, a few hoses, some pipes for the AC, a cross brace and a big hole that the Frunk liner fits into and give us some usable storage.

What about the MachE? Ford has the benefit of watching Tesla and seeing what they do.. or do they? I think they missed a memo or two

OMG.. can we have a few more hoses? How about another wiring harness? Still, there is usable space for storage. ..

What about the ID 4? Highly vaunted German engineering being what it is?

Yeahhhhh.. not so much.. not only it is the most crowded frunk with all kinds of stuff, hoses, cables and wiring, there is ZERO storage for you. Nada.. zippo. I have seen where people put down some bubble wrap so they can lay the mobile charger in there. Not sure if they were serious or just making a joke. But the lack of space and poor engineering is no joke. How do you start with a green field design and end up with this? This looks like a DIY homevbrew conversion, not a finely engineered commercial automobile.

I'm going to start poking around more to see what other engineering adventures can be found with something as simple as a Frunk.. ought to be interesting.

 

[jjrandorin]

The BMW iX doesnt even have a front trunk (frunk). I was like "huh?" when we were (very very briefly) considering that car for replacing my wifes X3.

 

[glide]

Ford Lightning frunk conspicuously absent…

 

[jabloomf1230]

The BMW iX doesnt even have a front trunk (frunk). I was like "huh?" when we were (very very briefly) considering that car for replacing my wifes X3.

Unlike the other "new from the ground up" BEVs mentioned in this thread, the electric BMWs share chassis designs with their ICE siblings. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. The sticker price, efficiency and the exterior design are much bigger impediments to me.

 

[jjrandorin]

Unlike the other "new from the ground up" BEVs mentioned in this thread, the electric BMWs share chassis designs with their ICE siblings. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. The sticker price, efficiency and the exterior design are much bigger impediments to me.

Im not saying the lack of a frunk was the only reason we chose not to get that iX, but it definitely drove home that the car was not likely engineered to be an EV. It was also waay too expensive for what it was.

 

[jjrandorin]

Ford Lightning frunk conspicuously absent…

I think the lightning has a really nice one, right? I am not a truck guy as I dont need one, but I thought I remembered the frunk there being really nice.

 

[glide]

I think the lightning has a really nice one, right? I am not a truck guy as I dont need one, but I thought I remembered the frunk there being really nice.

It’s enormous. That’s why I was questioning why it was left out. Clearly other manufacturers know how to do frunks.

 

[RobDickinson]

Unlike the other "new from the ground up" BEVs mentioned in this thread, the electric BMWs share chassis designs with their ICE siblings. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me. The sticker price, efficiency and the exterior design are much bigger impediments to me.

The iX is kinda an EV platform, but they messed it up bad, larger hood than the iX3 but no frunk, and about the same boot storage too.

The iX3 has quite a lot of space under the hood, with a few hours redesign etc they could easily have provided storage but its a BMW so 'screw you', you should have bought the petrol version...

The i3/ID platform I think is just poorly designed from a packaging pov, probably because its an assembly of parts from the suppliers, which leads to its software issues also. The parts on their own are ok but usually only doing the 1 task and not built for the task.

 

[SteelClouds]

It wasnt left out.. I only had time to look at these 3 today.. I plan to look at more in the coming days. I found a picture that shows how much of a PIA changing the rear sway bar on the MachE to upgrade will be.. that got me distracted

The black bracket is a battery locating bracket. The sway bar is literally stuff between the frame and battery. With the battery in place, you cannot see the upper bolt for the mounting bracket.. like the sticker says.. No user serviceable parts inside

 

[RobDickinson]

Again, ford buy in that whole rear assembly and bolt it in. They buy in the motor. The cells are LG chem, I assume they are buying in the packs mostly predone too.

 

[Takumi]

Ford Lightning frunk conspicuously absent…

If you know where to find a Lightning to take apart, that'd be a good start. We'll take a video or picture of it as well. Thanks!

 

[Eugenius]

What about the ID 4? Highly vaunted German engineering being what it is?

View attachment 783662

It ist not ID.4, it is Polestar. Look at logo at the bottom of you pic.

 

[SteelClouds]

Thats interesting.. thats what I get for being in a hurry :/. Good Catch.. I'll edit to correct

 

[SteelClouds]

It ist not ID.4, it is Polestar. Look at logo at the bottom of you pic.

OK.. not sure I can edit but I can add the correct pictures here.. this was what started the ID 4 story.. I searched on ID 4 frunk and found this picture

This was from Volkswagen's New 2022 ID.4 EV Has One Major Design Flaw But I Think I Fixed It
and there was another picture next to it in the Google search showing the guts of the frunk.. My bad was not looking closely at the 2nd image.. or maybe it was misstated.. I'm going back through my history so I can find again. Regardless, I should have caught the error.
Despite that mistake of the image.. the story about no room in the ID4 frunk is accurate. We can clearly see the logo in this one and the lack of room.
Here is the "stuff" in the way

 

[randmness]

I'm kinda curious if we'll eventually see the frunk disappear entirely. With a smaller bonnet, I imagine you could move that space into the interior cabin (and create a smaller/similar footprint vehicles) but I'm not in automotive engineering lol.

 

[mm9351]

Great topic and thanks for pulling this together. To be fair, I believe the VW and Polestar have done a great job on packaging the components in the frunk area, on par with Tesla. The Mach E, from a mechanical engineering / packaging standpoint, appears to be a complete disaster, unless that is a prototype or pre-production unit we are looking at. Which begs the question, why keep the Mach E beyond the warranty period, if repairs are ever needed? I had been considering the Mach E, but after seeing this thread I am grateful to have decided on Tesla.

 

[SteelClouds]

The Mach E, from a mechanical engineering / packaging standpoint, appears to be a complete disaster, unless that is a prototype or pre-production unit we are looking at. Which begs the question, why keep the Mach E beyond the warranty period, if repairs are ever needed? I had been considering the Mach E, but after seeing this thread I am grateful to have decided on Tesla.

The screen capture is from a tear down on a production MachE. I was really surprised to see that mess on a green field design. You should see the battery construction. Hoses and connections everywhere. The engineers were making the point that many manufacturers have two connections.. in and out because the possibilities of leaks every time you put in a coupling. ( source Munro Live)

The picture of how the roll bar is installed next to the battery tells me that the design teams were very "siloed" when working on the MachE. On most cars, it would not be much of an issue. I get that.. nobody upgrades the roll bars on a Camry. But, this is NOT a Camry.. it's a performance EV. People will want to upgrade/enhance/improve their ride. Ford ought to know this better than most with the whole mustang/pony car history behind them. Making the car friendly to the hotrodder/builder/enthusiast should have been a no brainer.

 

[roblab]

I'm kinda curious if we'll eventually see the frunk disappear entirely. With a smaller bonnet, I imagine you could move that space into the interior cabin (and create a smaller/similar footprint vehicles) but I'm not in automotive engineering lol.

I tend to doubt it. People like a hood. Even in the original VW beetle, there was a "frunk", and the hood, at least on my Teslas, is gently sloped to get greater aerodynamics and therefore greater range. And, by the way, I like having a frunk. It's full of all my charging cables and adapters. Good place for them, and I'm ready for just about anything.

I remember one of the first EV adopters who was on a trip and was unable to find a charger. Seems that he ended up tossing wires, which he had stripped a little near the middle, up and over power lines. These he connected to an inverter he carried which he then connected to his car. He was one of the first to attempt (and succeed) in driving an EV across the country. Thankfully we don't have those problems now.

 

[SteelClouds]

I remember one of the first EV adopters who was on a trip and was unable to find a charger. Seems that he ended up tossing wires, which he had stripped a little near the middle, up and over power lines. These he connected to an inverter he carried which he then connected to his car. He was one of the first to attempt (and succeed) in driving an EV across the country. Thankfully we don't have those problems now.

Holy crap.. and here I thought that Winslow AZ only having 1 charger was rough Road tripping is interesting in an EV.. longer range spoils us.. mine is only 200 miles ( 90% ) and so something like going from Flagstaff to the Grand Canyon and getting to the next charger is a bit dicy. So I'm not sure I agree with the "we dont have those problems now".. still there.. just different. If you stay on the interstate.. thats one thing.. but getting off and exploring is a different conversation all together.

 

[wycolo]

> Seems that he ended up tossing wires [roblab]

Getting ready for 4/1 I see