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Tesla Frunk Surprise

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gpetti

Active Member
Supporting Member
Nov 6, 2013
1,643
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Calgary, Canada
Couldn't resist posting this. My mother in law is notoriously difficult to impress with new cars. In the past when I upgraded to an Infiniti M37x from a Dodge Avenger she basically said "just looks like the same car to me". When I was waiting for the Tesla I didn't tell her much about it but that I guaranteed she would be impressed/surprised. I bet her a token $10 which she pays me in the video (I think she was initially not wanting to offend me). We made sure that the frunk was as surprising as possible!
 
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Wait - this is exactly what I was asking on another thread - I wanted to know if the frunk was air tight such that it would be dangerous to have someone hide in it to scare someone. Did you have the frunk fully closed? How did she breathe? I'm taking delivery of my MS P85 in two days and intend to do similar gags :)

J
 
Wait - this is exactly what I was asking on another thread - I wanted to know if the frunk was air tight such that it would be dangerous to have someone hide in it to scare someone. Did you have the frunk fully closed? How did she breathe? I'm taking delivery of my MS P85 in two days and intend to do similar gags :)

J

The Frunk was completely closed. she was a bit nervous at first so we tried it out so she could see how to get out if she panicked or couldn't breathe or whatever. The funny thing is you notice that I was trying to get the mother in law to look at the engine but then she wanted to look in the back of the car etc. and I was starting to worry that my wife would freak out if it took too long so I was getting pushy towards the end. I only showed the trunk first so she would see there was no engine there. Bottom line is that my wife says she had no trouble breathing but probably wise not to do a full tour of the car before letting someone out.
 
Fun vid, but to those who plan the surprise I'd caution a bit. There have been occasional glitches where the frunk doesn't open. Björn experienced it once during his videos where he was locked out from his food supplies and quite sad. I have had it happen once or twice where the frunk unlocks, but then doesn't open. I need to push it down again and unlock again and then it opened. This only happened twice, but I'd still rather not have it happen with my wife inside ;)
 
Yes, but I assume all it does is trigger the same mechanism that the FOB does. So if that mechanism is hosed ... we'll then you're s*** out of luck.
I'll have to do some more experiments putting my wife in the frunk, and see what happens. :smile:
Although I'm sure tesla does not encourage such shenanigans it seems clear that they have to make absolutely sure that someone can't get stuck in there - presumably designed for kids rather than pranking adults. I think that someone pointed out that there are ways of releasing the frunk that Bjorn could have used. Not that I had looked it up prior to locking her in.
 
When the frunk gets stuck, it is usually the secondary catch not releasing. It had happen to me a few times until I had the latches replaced. Mine was an early car. When the frunk pops but does not release fully, you can force the secondary latch to unhook by pressing down on a button to the left of the latch between the hood and the car. You can see it when the frunk is fully opened.
 
I know this is an old thread but came across this from the TMC twitter post.

There is a illuminated switch in the front bottom of the FRUNK which Tesla called the gangster kidnap emergency release switch so that anyone stuffed in the boot forcibly can release the boot open from the inside.