How Amazon Became the Largest Private EV Charging Operator in the US
To install 17,000 delivery van chargers at 120 warehouses, the company had to be flexible, patient and spend a lot of money.
EV charging stations at an Amazon Delivery Station in Maple Valley. Amazon has installed more than 17,000 chargers at about 120 warehouses around the US.
Photographer: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg
Amazon’s Maple Valley, Washington, warehouse is built for speed. At night, big rigs pull up to one end to unload boxes and padded mailers – some after a short drive from a bigger warehouse down the road, others following a flight in the hold of a cargo plane. Waiting employees scan, sort and load them into rolling racks.
Before 7 a.m. each day, many of those racks are wheeled out to dozens of vans lined up in four painted lanes. It’s the starting line at a Formula One race, but for $22-an-hour delivery drivers who ferry bottles of shampoo and packs of batteries to suburban Seattle doorsteps.