Electric vehicle frunks have a safety problem, if you ask Subaru. As first spotted by CarMoses, the manufacturer submitted two patent applications for deployable EV frunk designs that sit the frunk on top of the electric motor, rather than in front of it. This could be a big improvement for a couple of reasons.
Most EV frunks take up all of the space ahead of the electric motor. According to Subaru’s explanation in these patent apps, the frunk can crush into the high-voltage running gear, the passenger compartment, or both during an accident. That could not only injure passengers by way of brute force but also by electrically shocking them. The automaker’s designs show it wants to do away with that danger while still providing extra storage up front. It’s come up with two interesting solutions, both of which incorporate a smaller frunk storage box that deploys from under the hood.
In the first patent application, the frunk’s storage box is actually connected to the hood. When the hood is closed, it sits nicely in its little compartment. But when you open the hood, the box rises with it as they’re linked via swivel arms and gas struts. You can pull the box down from the open hood, access its contents, and push it back into place when you’re done.
The other design is essentially the opposite. The storage box sits at the bottom of the frunk compartment and is connected via either swing arms or gas struts that deploy it upward, at a forward angle toward you. This one seems to make much more sense than having it hang off the underside of the hood, as that seems like it could run into a weight-limit issue.
Either frunk option would have separate locks for the hood and the storage box. While they’d unlock together when you pop the hood, you could also independently lock the box, so you can keep the hood open but deny access to your goods from nearby ne’er-do-wells.
In the patent application drawings, you can see that the frunk storage sits above the front crash structure. Most EVs with frunks have a tray that goes pretty deep into the front of the car, but either of Subaru’s proposed setups would be much shallower. That could be seen as a downside for some customers, who might prefer competitors’ increased storage space, but Subaru seems willing to take that chance in the name of safety. If either of these proposed frunk designs makes it to production, it will be on future models and not the current Solterra, as that lacks a frunk altogether.
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