It is one of life’s great mysteries, along with where the lost treasure of El Dorado disappeared to, and whether Han or Greedo shot first. I’m talking about why the heck Volkswagen doesn’t put frunks in its ID electric cars. After a quick spin in the upcoming 2025 Volkswagen ID.7 at the IAA Mobility show in Munich—more on that in a second—I posed the question to VW’s head of design, Andreas Mindt.
Here’s what he had to say: “The problem with the frunk is, or let’s say the challenge is, how you handle that,” Mindt told me.“You have to open the first door and then walk around and put something in the frunk. That’s a lot of effort. Why to do that? When you have a little backpack I’d rather put it on the rear seat. It’s easier.”
Frankly, I have a hard time believing this answer. I mean, what, there’s no frunk because essentially consumers are lazy? I pressed him a bit and he eventually relented a tad.
“What do you want to do with the frunk?” he said. “For what do you need that? I know the discussion with the cable, you can store the cable… I was not involved in the development (of the ID.4/7). I can’t tell you why.”
Gah! Torch only wanted me to ask one question here in Munich and I’m coming home without the answer. Well, without a good answer, anyways. Please keep hiring me, Autopian!
Rewind about 45 minutes and I’m in a camouflaged ID.7 pulling 182 kilometers per hour—about 114 miles per hour—on the Autobahn. This is a few clicks over the supposed top speed of the all-electric mid-size sedan, but it still feels stable whisking down in the left-hand lane.
Although the 2025 ID.7 will be available in all-wheel drive when it makes its way here to the States next summer, I’m driving the rear-wheel drive version. I’ve got 282 ponies and 400 or so torques under my right foot, with power being stored in an 82 kWh battery. Volkswagen says that the battery can store enough electrons for 435 miles of range on the generous WLTP European cycle, though that number will likely drop when our own EPA gets a hold of it. Drivers will be able to shove power into the battery at a DC fast-charging station at speeds of up to 200 kW.
My drive isn’t the longest, but I still get a chance to try out a few features, including a new and very much improved infotainment system. I’m happy to report that the touch HVAC temperature and volume control sliders we all love to hate in the ID4 are backlit here in the ID.7. My drive is during the day, but cupping my hand around the sliders confirms they are indeed visible in the dark. Hallelujah.
Also on tap is a 15-inch infotainment screen, customizable three ways to Sunday. Always visible, a bar at the top can be customized to display shortcuts to most apps while the HVAC controls are on the bottom bar.
Well, almost all of them. If I want to change the direction of the vents, I need to tap the Climate icon and use the screen. It’s distracting and annoying, to solve a problem that doesn’t exist.
The home screen residing between the two narrow bars top and bottom is also customizable. Drivers can decide just what information they want displayed and where. I choose a big tile for navigation and smaller tiles for state of charge and for IDA, Volkswagen’s voice assistant. Tell her your hands are cold and she’ll turn on the heated steering wheel and angle the vents just so, but I just ask her to turn on the massaging seats. Oh, she’ll also tell you a joke if you ask her, but I wouldn’t recommend it. She was, after all, programmed by Germans.
There is no traditional gauge cluster in the ID.7, just a small digital rectangle behind the steering wheel. This displays a numerical speed reading, state of charge and a few other pieces of information, but there is more on the head-up display. Unfortunately, my prescription sunglasses are polarized and even at the brightest setting it’s really hard to see.
The ID.7 is outfitted with augmented reality to help with navigation. In the head-up display—I’ve taken off my sunglasses and I’m squinting—an overlay arrow appears at the corner where I am supposed to turn. As I approach the corner, the overlay gets bigger, appearing to move towards me. However, it’s not consistent. It flashes every 50 meters or so and I find that instead of looking at the road and any oncoming traffic, I’m looking at the flashing icon. This might take me a while to get used to.
I also sample Volkswagen’s hands-on level 2 semi-autonomous driving system Travel Assist. This camera-based system uses lane-keeping assist and adaptive cruise control to keep the ID.7 centered in the lane, even taking information from the navigation system to prepare for turns and changing speed limits. However, it doesn’t work so great on this narrow country road and I only keep it engaged for a few minutes. Seems too dodgy.
Although I don’t actually program the GPS, the native navigation system seems a little wonky. My drive route was supposed to take me from the autobahn through the countryside and back to home base. When I miss a turn, the nav system has me turn around– so far so good– but then bypasses the missed turn and takes me back to home base via the autobahn. Look, I’m not going to complain about getting a second chance to drive as fast as I want, but it was definitely not the intended route. Fortunately wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are on hand for Waze or Google Maps duties.
The adaptive suspension here is pretty great, with a definite swing between comfort and sport modes. What’s cool is I can really dial in the stiffness of the shocks over 15, yes 15 different levels. The system labels Comfort at level 4 and Sport at level 12, but there is still room to go softer or stiffer on either side.
The steering here feels quick and responsive, with enough heft in Sport mode to satisfy. I especially like the small turning radius, helpful when I have to park the car in an outdoor courtyard with tables full of media folks chatting away while I perilously execute a sharp u-turn in their midst.
The ID.7 lets me coast when lifting off the throttle like a traditional ICE vehicle, but by twisting the gear selector to B I can get some brake regen when I lift. However, one of the great joys in life is stuffing that battery with free electrons and I wish Volkswagen gave me more regen levels to choose from. Further, anyone who has driven an EV with one-pedal driving in stop-and-go traffic knows that it slaps. In B mode the car will slow almost to a stop, but doesn’t quite get there. It’s a pity the ID.7 won’t comply.
Oh, and before I forget, Volkswagen is still using the Patented Two-Button-Instead-of-Four-Window-Opener-Controller-Thingy. (Editor’s Note: I just let out an audible exhausted sigh. -PG) Unlike most vehicles with a button to control each window, the ID.7, like the ID4, has two window controls and a button marked Rear. To roll down the rear windows, one must remember to push that Rear button first. Good thing I don’t have enough friends to fill the back seat.
Volkswagen has been a bit slow to get electrified cars into its North American fleet—the only thing you can buy right now is the ID.4—but the ID.7 will make a nice addition. There is plenty of power on tap here and the new infotainment screen is much easier to use than what we’ve seen in the ID.4. I would like to have one on Autopian’s home turn to play around a bit more with the Travel Assist, but in all the ID.7 looks to be able to go head-to-head with the Tesla Model 3 and Hyundai Ioniq 6, and that’s no small feat.
The ID.7 is one of 10 new electric models Volkswagen promises to have worldwide by 2026. No word on pricing but considering the ID.7 will replace VW’s flagship Arteon sedan, we expect to see an MSRP of around $50,000—frunk not included.
You need to make a new Members Sticker that just says:
WTF
Where’s The Frunk?
There’s no great mystery: Greedo most definitely shot first. Han’s no cold-blooded killer, after all.
It was just the studio execs that wanted to do a callback to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, and George Lucas had no choice but to go along with it until years later when the Special Editions came out and he could finally depict the scene as he’d always imagined it.
OMG, this is so wrong. Han definitely shot first.
Han “Over my dead body.”
Greedo “That’s the idea. I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”
Han “I bet you have”. Shoots.
Come on, Han is a smuggler, he’s been around, and wasn’t afraid to defend himself. Greedo just said he was going to kill him, what was Han supposed to do, wait?
It’s the best character defining scene for Han.
Lucas could have had Greedo shoot first if he had wanted to. “Way he always imagined it” for Special Editions is nonsense. The Special Editions were just victims of a new era and a need to make everything as G rated as possible.
… wait, are you just trolling for a fight?
Did I just fall for it?
I thought it was fairly obvious, but, yeah, this was definitely supposed to be a “Use the Force, Harry” as stated by Patrick Stewart playing Gandalf type of thing…
I think it would be cool to look at this thing in conversation with the still-born EA 128 rear-engined sedan.
There are some striking similarities — rear-engined, size, proportions, the front-end styling even.
Pros:
Cons:
You can’t tease us like that! What exactly did you say to the stranger?
Something about him being fat. I was super young, but I still remember it because of Mom’s reaction.
I was disappointed when I found out Rivian makes you aim your air vents with the touch screen. I am horrified to see this feature trickling down. Cut it out, car makers!
Besides being very annoying, the windows switch thing just tells me they were cutting costs whereever they could, so I wonder where they cut costs that I can’t see.
They had to use the switch system everybody hates in order to pay for the motorized vents nobody wants.
While VW won’t admit it, the lack of Frunk is entirely due to cost. just looking at the under hood shot, there is clearly room for a frunk should the components be packaged correctly. The reality of car design is that tight packaging costs more in engineering hours, new part numbers (design, inventory, production), and more in manufacturing time due to complexity in routing, install, etc. The parts under that hood are clearly parts bin components that fit well enough in that space to be reused, which I understand, but shows how little effort VW seems to be making on their cars right now.
VW is desperate to try to eke every bit of profit out of their current products they will cut any feature if it will save a few bucks on manufacturing.
I had considered upgrading my Mk7.5 Wagon to a Mk8 GTI or even R, but the quality dropped off so dramatically given the price. I mean seriously, they removed the hood struts and reverted to a prop rod, on a 35k+ performance hatchback which owners are far more likely to spend time under the hood. My relatively cheap wagon felt like a baby Audi in terms of fit and finish and ergonomics, while the Mk8 feels barely a step above a corolla, and below even a Civic or Mazda 3.
Mk 7.5 is the last and best Golf. It’s all downhill now.
A Corolla, Civic and Mazda 3 are waaaay above a Mk8 Golf in terms of ergonomics.
Oh absolutely, I ended up with a CX-30 Turbo and while it’s not the sportiest thing in the world, the interior feels like the MSRP is 10K higher than a mk8, not 5-10k lower which it is in reality. And a buddy of mine has a civic sport, which at 26k or so MSRP also has better ergonomics. I like VWs, but not their current models.
Can confirm, the CX-50 Turbo interior feels similarly upscale. Why motorize an interior vent, VW? Seriously? So you can charge $800 to replace it in 5 years?
Replace it in 5 years?
You mean 3 years and one day or 36001 miles.
But motorized vents + relays + software cost more than the same vents operated manually. So the whole cost thing doesn’t tell the whole story.
It’s not entirely a cost thing. Not having to accommodate additional storage let VW give the ID cars a very tight turning circle, which is more important than storage in some of their key markets like China and Europe in particular
The RWD ID4’s turning circle is 30ft, AWD ID cars are 35ft, and the 3/Y/Mach-E is 40 ft
I’m hoping David Tracy or Torch eventually write an article about it
Enginerd time.
Andreas’ answers here are all code for “It wasn’t a high priority, so it got stripped from the requirements.” He’s not explaining the final decision so much as repeating the discussion.
Standard engineering practice when designing a platform is to keep the requirements as slim as possible so you don’t paint yourself into a corner later. From time to time, I have to put my foot down with management and say, “If we can’t guarantee feature X will work in every product, we shouldn’t offer it in any product.” If you make requirements that are impossible to meet in some products, that’s a minor disaster. If you split one platform into six so you can meet every possible use case, you can wave goodbye to your margins and your engineers.
VW’s MEB platform is a proper platform with 9 cars across 4 brands and counting. Adding frunk support to the MEB requirements is painting yourself in a corner — how do you guarantee every MEB vehicle can have a frunk when you don’t know what their sheetmetal looks like? Likewise, just becauae you can fit a pizza-box-frunk in an ID.4 today, why would you add an entire enclosure assembly to your supply chain and manufacturing specs when next year’s MEB updates could eat up all that space anyway?
I’m not saying this is exactly why the ID.7 lacks a frunk, but this is the kind of situation that happens when you have to consider knock-on effects of a one-size-fits-all platform.
…this does not explain the ID.7’s touchscreen air vent controls. What the hell, VW?
Man I was really hoping VW had learned something after admitting their interiors were turning off longtime customers but I guess it’s hard to overcome their default mode of “no, it’s everyone else who is wrong”. The number of self-owns in that interior is astounding. They took two things (windows and air vents) that every person who has ever been in a car immediately knows how to use and made them hard. Impressive.
There does appear to be an actual hand-operated latch for the glove box though so gotta give them credit there.
Yep, the hubris on display shouldn’t be too surprising I guess, even for dyed in the wool fanboys like me. Like, VW can’t even seem to design a water pump that doesn’t leak on the EA888 engine that’s been out for decades. But what really irks me is when something doesn’t work the way it has always worked in every previous VW I’ve owned. Why reinvent the wheel?
I’d wager the design was just too far along to do much about when they started getting all the negative criticism on their interiors.
I suspect this car’s design and engineering were in the can before the CEO went on the record saying it was a mistake. They’ve probably ordered a quadrillion window controls and associated hardware. We may see improvements in a few years but not for a while.
VW’s GPS has been wonky for a while. My wife has a 2022 Tiguan with effed up GPS (it’s the first year of the refresh model with the not-improved touch controls). I hate the UI because it’s not at all intuitive. The GPS not only loses its location by miles, it also affects ALL navigation apps in Apple CarPlay. It’s fricking terrible.
I was sort of a VW fanboy before this car (I’ve owned 4 VWs and 3 Audis) but seeing the hot garbage infotainment and user interface design, as well as the fugly jelly bean car designs, I’m over it. Especially when the lead designer on these cars does not seem to understand why people want more storage space. What they hell happened to Bauhaus like utilitarian design?
Let me get this straight… I have to use a touchscreen to aim the air vents???
VW… clearly you don’t want me buying your cars, do you?
Of course he didn’t know why there is no frunk, he’s the top designer. You needed to talk to a frunk designer. The top looks OK, I guess.
VW Designers: Hmm… how can people hate our window switches even more? Ooh, I know! Let’s make the surrounding trim “crime scene white”.
“inspired by the Bosendorfer, the world’s best pianos, our interiors marry finger-oil-highlighting black to dirt-enhancing white to appeal to families with dogs or young children.”
FWIW, I can press a button on my FordPass app to pop the frunk on my Mach E. Surely, the overthinking Germans should’ve/could’ve realized that was a possibility…??
Or… use a fob? Or a handle? (The horror)
Counterpoint – almost nobody uses the frunk on their EV unless it’s a truck. I do like this car though.
Counter-counterpoint – You’re correct, almost no one uses it… for regular cargo. It’s a place where people stash their backup charger and emergency roadside supplies because it’s FAR easier to access than under-floor storage in your trunk that may or may not have a hundred pounds of groceries in it.
My EV did not come with a frunk, but there’s a kit to add one. Which I will be adding.
I may be an outlier but I carry all kinds of little stuff like extra bags, gloves, a small tool kit, squeegees, rags, bungee cords, ice scraper, tire pressure gauge, and a car cover in the little space under the trunk/cargo floor that becomes immediately inaccessible if I’m carrying any cargo. A frunk is a perfect spot for all these things I’ll need only a few times a year but don’t need to safeguard or having rolling around by having them inside the vehicle.
Plus, it’s a weird omission when most competitors have figured out how to do it and can give EV buyers more of the benefits of EV packaging, rather than just making essentially the same packaging as an ICE car and calling it good enough
I use my frunk on the daily. I like that my tools and laptop bag go in there and don’t have room to slide around like they would in the truck or seats during, ahem, enthusiastic commuting.
Plus there is an added layer of security, thieves can’t see your stuff so less like to be a victim of a smash n grab.
A picture surfaced of the corner of a Tesla Model 3 frunk pried up. It haunts me.
I love my frunk for gym gear, and especially my cycling shoes. My EV is the best smelling car I’ve ever had.
Meanwhile, just up the road in Stuttgart another marque in the same conglomo demonstrates how to put a 5 cubic foot frunk in a 3 cubic foot sportscar.
This seems pretty nice? As usual, it’s an insane amount of money for a sedan, or any car really, but I find the design to be somewhat good-looking. The same design language doesn’t work as well on the ID.4.
Hate hate hate the sliders, even though they’re now backlit (not backlighting those sliders initially is one of the saddest design errors I’ve seen out of a car manufacturer in ages, that sort of obvious issue reeks of malaise era style decision making). We’ve all tarred and feathered those window switches, they suck, and always will suck. As for the lack of frunk, not bothering to maximize EVs packaging benefits just feels lazy, cause it is lazy.
+100 points for the gigantic dead pedal though. I have some seriously wide feet and I appreciate a real solid slab for a dead pedal.
Apparently the reason why the sliders weren’t lit was to accommodate a hand gesture sensor
I didn’t know the ID cars even had gesture control until a few days ago
Am I the only one who likes that camouflage color scheme? Take the business off the back windows and I’d drive that in its 8-bit prismatic glory.
Right? I expect to see this at a Cars & Coffee at some point. I’d make mine with QR codes to Rick Roll people.
I want to like this, and I hope it does better than the Arteon, but its just so fucking boring to look at.
Also, I know it was too late in the product cycle to save it from the capacitive everything interior, but they better get the refresh out with the quickness.
The Arteon was so pretty.
I’m disappointed that they are still on the touchscreen and capacitive button kick. I was hoping they’d listen to all the criticism and give us more real buttons.
Oh joy, another car full of inconveniences small enough not to be total dealbreakers at first, but will become joyless nuissances over time until you hate the car entirely for reasons you can’t quite describe as it’s not one singular problem, leading more drivers to decide they hate driving, creating more worse drivers as a byproduct.
Agree! Climate control on my Polestar 2 is getting more annoying over time because sometimes it glitches. Or when you start the car you have to put it on reverse or drive but then I usually have to put it on Reverse to leave my driveway, the climate control is not available. I press parking right away but the rear camera is still showing. Get out of my view
I am still not used to adjust everything before I actually do the action of starting the vehicle, give me a start button please
This is also the closest to a scientific reason I can give for why we actually need simpler, “quirkier,” less perfect vehicles. We’ve become so obsessed with making cars do everything that they are just annoying at everything. Before driving modes and screen gimmicks, your car was just a car and it was specialized to have one driving experience. It wasn’t perfect, but you learned to live with it and grew to like it. I would argue it taught you better car control as your car behaved consistently, you couldn’t rely on driving modes to get you out of trouble.
Furthermore, the major flaws and quirks devoted your attention to something that could be endearing. You don’t notice the small flaws when there are major quirks that demand your attention, but if you can forgive those major quirks then you still don’t notice the small flaws, and now you have a car you can grow to love despite its imperfections.
So the old Apple answer: It’s not there because we decided you don’t need it.
A Volkswagen designer asking why anyone would need a trunk in the front of the vehicle is some sort of cognitive dissonance
Why give it a frunk? Because more cargo capacity is more better! The bulk majority of consumers do not give a flying fart about stats they don’t understand such as horsepower and torque or handling, but they DO care about cargo capacity! Normal people have some concept of what cubic feet are and why they matter, and they will absolutely cross-shop this car with others based on how much crap they can put in it. Not having a frunk is a MAJOR oversight, and VW has no excuse to not include one beyond laziness.
he’s talking about the Beetle lol.
Not just the Beetle. There’s also this ad for the Type 3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDz8fkXJ0AI&t=40s
touché
Type 3 and square back both
So… VW Know How to do a frank.
It’s almost like they are a much older established company & just don’t give a ‘forking shirt’ about maximizing value to the people that buy their products
He’ll even the 914 (which at least for the 4 cyl version many consider a VW) was able to include both a trunk and a front trunk even though the 914 is a relatively tiny vehicle.
I know he’s talking about the Beetle (and the Type 3 and the Type 4 and the several Karmann Ghias and the SP2 and-), I’m just adding to the discussion of why VW should give a crap, since this is a discussion relating to frunks.
Right? It’s like the old “it has pockets meme”, pockets are good! What would you put in there? Whatever will fit! Keeps it out of the way of the regular storage. A modern day designer not understanding the appeal of this on an SUV of all things is really not with it.
This is why cars have 18 cupholders.
Ballaban’s article (on that site) on the Subaru Ascents 19 cupholders will go down in history as one of the greatest pieces of auto journalism of all time.
To be fair, wasn’t the Ascent’s primary marketing tagline, “Never go thirsty again?”
Especially nowadays since vehicle break-ins are at an all-time high and even putting something in a rear trunk isn’t safe anymore when thieves will smash your window anyway and fold down the center pass-through to look in the trunk. If your car has a frunk, that’s probably the safest place to put something in the whole vehicle, and could be a major selling point for a lot of people.
It’s definitely better looking than the ioniq 6, and actually has a real hatch.
That’s not a high bar. Even as an H-K stan, the Ioniq 6 makes me want to vomit.
This is actually quite attractive. Too bad it got fully Volkswagened.
I’ve found something else that they should add to the window switches, a button for ALL, so when that’s pressed all windows can be raised or lowered at the same time.
I’ve got one on my Sierra.
Someone on the interwebs call it the fart ejector switch.
Can’t raise them with it, but I do have four buttons on my door armrest. Hit the auto-up on the driver’s, then 3 finger the rest.
Public service announcement: when outside the truck push and hold unlock on the key fob and all windows will roll down. (limited trims only)
VW used to have it so if you tuened & held the key in the unlock position (to the left) in the driver’s door, you could open all windows and moon roof. Pressing & holding a button on the key/key fob is the modern equivalent
They have that. You press and hold the “REAR” button.
But of course, VW being VW, it’s a capacitive button and the hold time is way too long.