The great thing about electric cars, execs often tell us, is that they free designers and engineers from the constraints of having to find somewhere to put a huge V8 engine, transmission, and driveshaft. That flexibility should mean more space for people and also more space for their luggage, with many EVs having a frunk – a front trunk – in addition to a regular, larger load bay in the rear.
Ford’s F-150 Lightning has a huge frunk, a feature that answers the one major concern many car drivers have when they’re thinking about switching to a truck. Cadillac’s $340k Celestiq luxury sedan? Not so huge in the frunk department, as these images of a stranded car show.
We don’t know exactly what caused the posh EV to break down, or why the driver had the frunk open because he surely can’t have been expecting to fix anything to do with the GM Ultium hardware and get back on the road quickly. The days of throwing in that spare set of contact breaker points you have in your tool roll are long gone.
Related: Is This Bright Green Cadillac Celestiq The ‘Standard Of The World’?
But whatever forced the EV’s unexpected stop we’re thankful for it because it gives us a rare glimpse under the hood. The frunk appears to be carved in the shape of the Cadillac crest, and while we can’t make out from this angle how deep it is, we can see that it’s neither long nor wide.
But that’s not necessarily a surprise given that the Cadillac is low, has huge wheels that measure up to 23 inches tall, and that engineers also had to find space for an electric motor at the front, as well as one at the back. We imagine that there’s still enough room in there for a briefcase or small flight case, while anything bigger should fit without problem beneath the large rear hatch.
This prototype was spotted close to GM’s Milford Proving Ground in Michigan, and was eventually carried away on the back of a flatbed recovery truck, our spy photographer tells us. Let’s hope it was a one-off glitch because Cadillac is getting ready to deliver its first customer cars this spring, and if the brand is going to convince customers that it’s a worthy Bentley and Rolls Royce rival, it can’t afford any mess-ups.
