It was almost certainly for manufacturing/cost reasons.

Not having it be hydraulic probably saves $2k per unit.

I don’t think VW ever called it a frunk. I would believe you if you insist they did it can provide any evidence. Tesla want the first to put storage up there, but they did coin “frunk”.

Tesla was the first to say it and they didn’t trademark it. It works so everyone else adopted the term.

Ford figured out how to do it for the Lightning.

That’s basically what I use mine for. I work in environmental engineering and am very often on construction sites. So I use it to store my PPE bag.

I have a MMachE. Honestly the Frunk is not as useful as I imagined it would be (at least Ford’s implementation of the Frunk." You have to open it just like you would the hood of your ICE car, which is fine for an ICE car hood, but not very convenient for storage access. As a result, I really don’t use it that much.

I personally think your third possibility is the least likely. I just find it unimaginable that there would not have been any cultural exchange at all of the two peoples knew about each other.

I can imagine human beings, even extremely capable ones, just missing things. In fact that happened a lot. There were many European cultures that had the technical capability to sail to the Americans for thousands of years before they did it. And there were clothes in the Americas that had the capability to go the other way, but they didn’t.

As someone else pointed out, there is a similar story for Madagascar. There were plenty of cultures that could have discovered it for centuries that just didn’t. Similar stories with countless other islands.

Honestly, I think it’s more surprising that the indigenous Australian peoples discovered the continent when they did. They were the only animals to make the jump across the straight.

I don’t know. There is linguistic, archeological and genetic evidence that the Polynesians traded with the South Americans, but I don’t think there is nearly as robust evidence for Australia.

Current evidence as I understand it is really just as that map depicts it. That they went straight from Indonesia to New Zealand, and just missed Australia.

I think it’s such a funny quark of history that the Polynesians, despite their incredible sea exploration abilities, just apparently completely missed Australia.

That… Is some fucked up shit.

Oh, you’re from Southeast Asia. Never mind then. Y’all gonna be vassals of China.

I could be talked into Italy pretty easily.

Make no mistake. We’re taking y’all with us.

How much is the offer? I would consider it.

Removed by mod

That’s so weird.