I don’t have any cars with a “frunk,” but I do have ones with front hoods and rear trunks and I’m pretty damn sure there’s nothing particularly special about the latch in the front compared to the rear. Admittedly, I’m not sure why the hood is typically popped from inside the car instead of, say, via a lock cylinder mounted in the grill (maybe it’s a tradition thing, or maybe a forward-facing lock cylinder gets dirty too easily?), but I don’t think safety is it.

More to the point, the fearmongering about aftermarket owner modification is nonsense. People have been doing stuff like that for decades without any real problems. Hell, people put on carbon fiber hoods that don’t even have hardware for the factory latch, and then secure them with hood pins instead, and that’s street legal. There was nothing weird or dangerous or legitimately controversial about my idea in the slightest.

BMW did the same 2-stage latch on the i3 that you’d file on an engine cover, and I’ve been quite pleased it did when I’ve sat on the keys wrong and popped the bonnet at a traffic light. Knowing I could still drive to somewhere safe to close it properly was a good thing.