Mercedes Discovers the Frunk
Ten years after the Tesla Model S, Mercedes now realizes that a frunk might be a good idea after all. A frunk is a “front trunk”, i.e. a luggage compartment located at the front under the hood. As with the legendary VW Beetle, where the engine was located at the rear, the front section, where the combustion engine is usually located under the hood, could be used as a trunk.
This has changed with electric cars in that the much smaller electric motors have freed up storage space. And manufacturers who have designed their cars as electric cars from the ground up are taking advantage of this. For example, all Tesla models have a frunk, i.e. storage space. So far, Lucid Motors has put the largest frunk on its wheels, as can be seen in the following picture:
Traditionelle Hersteller (aber auch einige neue Elektroautohersteller wie Nio), schenkten dem Funk bislang wenig Beachtung. Der Grund? Man wollte sich einerseits die Option offen halten, doch noch einen Verbrennungsmotor einbauen zu können, andererseits wurde angeführt, dass man damit weniger Umstellungsprobleme in den Autofabriken hat. Das soll unter anderem bei Volkswagen, BMW oder Mercedes so sein.
Beim EQC und dem EQS (aber auch bei allen anderen Elektrofahrzeugen) von Mercedes sieht man, wie es unter der Motorhaube aussieht. Und erkennt auch gleich, wie durch das Offenlassen des Antriebsstranges bei Elektroautos massive Rohrrahmen eingebaut werden müssen, um das Fahrzeug bei Unfällen sicher zu machen. So nebenbei packt Mercedes noch alles mögliche wie Kühlung oder Elektrik in diesen Bereich. Da bleibt nicht mehr viel übrig.
And as the owner, you are not allowed to open this hood. Only the mechanic should do that. Which leads to probably one of the strangest solutions for topping up windshield wiper fluid without a mechanic. A thing that folds out to the side on the driver’s side, which someone at Mercedes obviously thought was a good solution.
Mercedes management has been talking down the frunk for years. Remember the same discussion years ago about cupholders, where the argument against them was the “purity of the interior design”, and that the cupholders – which Americans in particular love – would “ruin” it. With the frunk, you had to bend more backwards, because more storage space never hurts.
Now Mercedes has posted a job posting for a System Manager Front Trunk looking for a “creator” for it. After years of badmouthing and ignoring the frunk, Mercedes has now recognized its importance. Half-hearted solutions don’t work with customers and people expect more from Mercedes.
Why is that a good thing? Not only does it give car owners more storage space, it is also a not insignificant signal from the company that this vehicle is not a half-heartedly cobbled-together electric car so that they “also have something on offer”, but that a complete redesign has really been carried out around the new powertrain, which optimizes the car around it for the benefit of the customer. Ford also seems to have slowly recognized this, if you look at the patents for innovative storage space solutions in the frunk.
BMW and VW should take this to heart as well and follow suit. Speaking of taking it to heart:
Einstein would recommend these two books on artificial intelligence if he wanted to get a quick yet in-depth overview of the philosophical, human and practical issues surrounding AI.
And as an author, I am of course very happy about that
This article was also published in German.
