Fair enough. Your world, your rules.

Volkswagen being a specific brand with a specific history, I assumed that history would be more or less the same (having no reason to think otherwise). Perhaps in a much bigger story, world building would show that only the name is the same.

As for the spiders, I thought the chittering amongst themselves evoked language, and the capturing of the cart (not itself edible) to prevent their prey from leaving, implied some measure of higher order intelligence. I suppose there could have been horses the spiders wanted, but there was no mention of them.

All that aside, I still enjoyed it.