Amazon Last Mile Taps PowerFlex to Optimize Electric Deliveries Across U.S.

Support 20,000+ EV Chargers to Ensure Vans Complete Their Deliveries on Time, Every Day

Managing a fleet is complex, as it requires navigating an ecosystem of different vehicle manufacturers, fleet managers, telematics providers, charging companies, and communications systems. When dealing with a fleet of thousands of vehicles spread across the country, even bigger challenges emerge like dealing with a confusing web of local utilities and tariffs, servicing chargers separated by hundreds of miles, and ensuring charging management software can scale to meet pressing demand. These are just some of the challenges Amazon faced in electrifying their last-mile deliveries. The company sought a strategic partner that could not only manage its current deployment of EV chargers but offer a software solution capable of scaling along with its ever-growing electric fleet.

Adaptive Fleet EV Charging Software That Delivers Reliability, Control, and Flexibility for Amazon Last-Mile

Amazon chose PowerFlex to provide software management for more than 20,000 EV chargers across more than 150 different sites. PowerFlex’s cleantech platform, PowerFlex X™, gives Amazon Last Mile unprecedented visibility into, and control over, its charging operations — ensuring fleet managers and drivers can complete their delivery routes every day.

PowerFlex X provides real-time monitoring and control of each charger at every location, allowing personnel to see how many chargers are occupied, ready for use, or experiencing problems. With automatic alarms, fleet managers are notified right when an issue arises so immediate corrective actions can be taken. The platform also generates reports, allowing users to track and analyze trends with historical data.

Solving the Challenges of Last-Mile Electrification

PowerFlex X helps Amazon meet the challenges that come with expanding fleet charging operations, including charger monitoring, maintenance, and software scalability.

• PowerFlex X optimizes large-scale charging installations by leveraging patented Adaptive Load Management® (ALM) technology. At one site, ALM increased maximum power by more than 40% compared to static load limits and decreased average charge time by nearly 2 hours per vehicle.
• Amazon employees who use the platform can view data for specific sites as well as portfolio wide. Employees have access to different levels of information depending on their job function, allowing those who are most involved in the charging process to drill down to data on individual chargers and sessions.
• Real-time monitoring and detailed connectivity status updates help distinguish between actual offline events and communication lapses, helping Amazon prevent unnecessary site maintenance visits that waste time, money, and resources.
• Amazon employees don’t need to be constantly looking at PowerFlex X; the platform offers proactive monitoring services that surface issues before they become critical. Site alarms with configurable thresholds for connectivity problems and charger faults notify Amazon support teams of high-severity events so they can be remedied.

Bringing Flexibility to Fleet Charging

By adhering to Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) standards, PowerFlex gives Amazon control over what chargers to implement as well as the flexibility to change charger types over time.

To ensure success, PowerFlex developed custom testing and procedures for Amazon’s unique operational needs that go beyond basic OCCP features. These included interoperability testing to ensure hardware and firmware compatibility, data handling procedures that aligned with Amazon’s robust requirements, and pilot program support to onboard new electric vehicle service equipment (EVSE) models and firmware versions.

So far, PowerFlex has successfully tested and fully integrated 10 different EVSE models within Amazon’s fleet, giving the company control over the charging hardware it uses and the confidence that its delivery drivers can get the energy they need, when they need it.

PowerFlex also allows Amazon to pair chargers to vans more easily by leveraging ISO 15118, a communication protocol that identifies vehicles automatically without any need for RFID or telematics integration.

Amazon aims to operate 100,000 EVs by 2030, and PowerFlex will continue stepping up to the challenges of fleet electrification with its scale-tested PowerFlex X platform.