American multinational tech giant Amazon has just advanced as the largest private electric vehicle charging operator in the United States, according to Bloomberg.
Amazon’s EV Charger Deployment
Amazon’s electric vehicle charger deployment has reportedly exceeded 17,000 units across 120 warehouses in the US in just more than two years. This significant expansion enabled the company to become the leading charging infrastructure operator in the private sector.
The American company is partly leaning on a German company’s knowledge and expertise in expanding its charging infrastructure in the US. As per the report, Siemens powers Amazon depot with 309 EV chargers in Maple Valley, Washington.
Electrification Push
As part of Amazon’s electrification push, it partnered with electric vehicle startup Rivian with a significant investment.
Amazon ordered 100,000 custom-made electric delivery vans from Rivian. Of that total, Rivian has already delivered 13,500 units so far. The tech giant believes it can cut the carbon footprint from its last-mile delivery business with its move to adopt electric vehicles.
The company’s press release, Amazon is deploying Rivian’s custom-made electric delivery vans across thousands of cities nationwide. The coverage currently includes Alpharetta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, etc.
Amazon boasts that the electric vans offer a “first-of-its-kind” technology that incorporates the delivery workflow with the EV. In effect, the electric vans deliver “seamless access to routing, navigation, driver support, and more.”
Amazon’s Struggles
It is worth noting that Amazon also failed to avoid the power grid’s limitations, especially considering its charging infrastructures’ enormous scale.
The US government estimates that an approximately 100,000 square meter warehouse in an industrial site requires about 50 kW of power, mostly for air conditioning and lighting. This rate could potentially rise by ten- to twenty times when the site includes 100 EV chargers in the parking lot.
“It was a bit of a surprise, how long we would need to prepare for the lead time for infrastructure.”
Chris Atkins, Amazon’s head of logistics sustainability teams at Amazon
Apart from that, EV charging points development is very expensive, with Bloomberg estimating Amazon’s charging hardware expenditures to cost $50-$90 million.
“Factoring in costs beyond the plugs and related hardware — like digging through a parking lot to lay wires or set up electrical panels and cabinets – could double that sum.”
Bloomberg
In the US, the company mostly offers only Level 2 chargers (AC chargers) with 240 volts rather than the most powerful Level 3 (DC fast chargers). Beyond its home market, Amazon is investing over €1 billion ($1.07 billion) in the next 5 years for its electrification push in Europe.
