All right. We're loaded up and ready to go.
For the 275,000 drivers dropping off 10 million
packages a day around the world, delivering for Amazon
is a lot of work.
I've been tired, exhausted, long days.
The expectation is just go, go, go, go, go at your own
cost.
But a lot has changed since drivers in 2021 told us
about unrealistic workloads, peeing in
bottles, dog bites and error-prone routing
software.
We're checked in. We're ready to go.
Got our little key fob.
For some drivers, it's changed a lot.
Now that 1,000+ electric Rivian vans are on the
roads.
Heated steering wheel is amazing.
This little guy is cool.
It's like the 360 view.
So far, so good.
We talked to drivers of the old vans and new and went to
Boston to see firsthand all the new tech Amazon says is
maximizing safety and efficiency for a better
driver experience.
One feature I really like is this big ole light bar that
goes all the way around the back.
In 2019, Jeff Bezos announced Amazon purchased
100,000 vans from California-based electric
vehicle maker Rivian.
It's one step toward Amazon's ambitious promise
of net-zero carbon emissions by 2040.
Amazon started delivering with them in July.
Now it says they're in 100+ cities like Austin,
Baltimore, Chicago, Las Vegas, Nashville and New
York.
This windshield is absolutely massive.
Some drivers voiced early concerns about range, but
Amazon says at up to 150 miles, it's not an issue.
Now, Amazon's added thousands of charging
stations at delivery hubs.
So this one's charging right now.
But here's the craziest part.
Are you ready? Look at all those chargers.
Rivian has faced some recent challenges, cutting back
2022 production amid supply chain and assembly line
issues. Its stock fell so sharply that Amazon recorded
a $3.9 billion loss on its Rivian holdings in Q2 last
year. And some drivers are worried about the
inconvenience and wait time for maintenance, which has
to happen at official Rivian service centers or by
a Rivian mobile service team.
I was waiting for this moment. Rivian truck.
Rivian van.
Still, Amazon says it expects 100,000 Rivian vans
on the road by 2030, although that's pushed back
from Bezos' original pledge to have them all on the road
by 2024.
For now, most drivers are still in 110,000
Amazon-branded gas-powered vehicles, primarily Ford
Transits, Mercedes Sprinters, and Ram
ProMasters. Amazon wouldn't share how it determines
which of its 3,500 delivery service partners, or DSPs,
get Rivian vans first.
Amazon's been using these third-party contractors to
deliver its packages since 2018, allowing it to cut
back its reliance on UPS and the U.S.
Postal Service. Here's how it works.
The DSP is the employer of the drivers, responsible for
the liabilities of the road and the costs of hiring,
benefits and overtime pay.
And they lease the custom vehicles from Amazon.
Amazon covers the fuel and installs charging stations
for electric vehicles and offers discounts to the DSP
on things like insurance, uniforms and package
scanners known as rabbits.
In the four years since Amazon launched the program,
it says DSP owners have generated $26 billion in
revenue and now operate in 15 countries, including
Saudi Arabia, India, Brazil, Canada and all over
Europe.
It's very easy to get in and out with all of the
different handles to hold on to.
Julieta Dennis launched her DSP, called Kangaroo Direct,
in Baltimore in 2019.
She employs 75 drivers and leases more than 50 vans
from Amazon. Fifteen of them are Rivians.
Because they're so new and a lot of the drivers don't
really know what to expect from them, some of them have
been hesitant.
But the moment they get in there and have their first
experience, that's the van that they want to drive.
The Rivian vans are small enough that they don't
require a special license to drive, although Amazon
provides its own training to drivers before they can
get behind the wheel.
So this is where all the lovely cargo goes.
We have two shelves on both sides to allow for more
space. And then the lights at the top: very innovative
to help us see the packages and address a lot easier,
especially at nighttime.
Brandi Monroe has been delivering for Dennis's
Baltimore DSP for two years.
She says the new vans make her job faster and easier.
The van has a 360 view of all sides of the van.
Also on the inside, it has a route laid out for you
right on the tablet.
And then there's AC seats and heated steering wheel.
So that's great.
Former driver B.J.
Natividad, who goes by Avionyx on YouTube, says his
non-electric van could get very cramped.
I remember one time I had 23 or 24 bags and over 40
oversize packages.
I had to be able to figure out how to stuff that all in
there within the 15 minutes that they give us.
When designing the vans, Amazon asked for input from
drivers about what needed to be better.
Now they're filled with features for comfort and
boosted productivity.
In the back here the shelves actually fold up and down,
and there's still plenty of space to walk.
The Rivian vans have at least 100 more cubic feet
than the Sprinter and up to double the cargo space of
the Transit vans Natividad drove in Las Vegas until he
left in July. More space to better organize means faster
deliveries while on route and room for more packages.
The bulkhead is automatic.
As soon as the vehicle is placed in park, it
automatically opens.
So that helps to get like easy access to the packages
in and out of the van.
Also, when you leave the van and you walk away a few
feet, it automatically closes.
We did a lot of deliveries as a test because as a
woman, I want to make sure that the seats are
comfortable for me and that my legs could reach the
pedals, I can see over the steering wheel.
Mai Le's team at Amazon built out the Rivian's
center console and its integrated software.
When we start to notice that you're slowing down, that
means that we can tell you're getting near to your
destination. The map begins to zoom in, so you begin to
find where's your delivery location, which building and
where parking could be.
The new vans have keyless entry and automatically lock
when the driver is 15 feet away and unlock as the
driver approaches.
Above all else, Amazon says it's made changes to make
the delivery job safer.
A ProPublica report found Amazon's contract drivers
were involved in more than 60 serious crashes from 2015
to 2019, at least ten of which were fatal.
Now Amazon's put cameras and sensors all over the new
Rivian vans, which enable warnings and lane-assist
technology that autocorrects if the vehicle
veers out of the lane.
The steering wheel just kind of shaking when you get too
close to something, the automatic braking that it
has, the 360 bird's eye view just to be able to see
everything around the van.
There's just so many features that would really
help cut back on some of those incidental accidents.
It's crazy.
All the alarms like, look, there's a person right there
and it just let me know.
There's an automatic parking brake, rollaway detection
and driver-facing cameras inside.
Now, Amazon can issue warnings about unsafe
driving practices as they happen.
Camera, camera.
Netradyne camera, which has always been there.
Beryl Tomay helps run the technology side of last mile
delivery for Amazon.
The in-vehicle safety technology we have watches
for poor safety behaviors like distracted driving,
seatbelts not being fastened, running stop
signs, traffic lights.
We've seen over the past year a reduction of 80% to
95% in these events when we've warned drivers
real-time. But the really game changing results that
we've seen have been almost a 50% reduction in
accidents.
DSP owners like Dennis get real-time alerts if their
drivers exhibit patterns of unsafe behavior.
You know, something with a seatbelt or just something,
something flags, then our team will contact the driver
and make sure that that's coached on and taken care of
and figured out, like what actually happened.
Some drivers told us the feeling of constant
surveillance is unsettling.
Dennis says it's not an issue for her drivers.
No one's complained to you about that?
None of your drivers?
Never. Never.
There's no sound ever being recorded.
There's no camera recording if the driver's not driving
and there's a privacy mode.
Amazon says privacy mode means the cabin-facing
camera switches off both when the ignition is off and
if the vehicle is stationary for more than 30
seconds, and that there's no live video feed available
to anyone.
One of the things everyone was so concerned about was
that there would be a camera back here in the
cargo area.
There's nothing in there.
Another concern drivers told us about is aggressive dogs.
Customers out there, please restrain your dogs when you
know a package is coming.
Okay? Please keep them inside.
Don't leave them just outside.
One Amazon driver in Missouri was found dead in
October, allegedly after a dog attack.
Now Amazon is working to increase notifications to
both customers and drivers.
One of the other things that we're building and we're
going to be launching is the in-app for drivers so
that they can actually then tag inside the app that,
hey, this place has a pet so that in the future any
other drivers that come to this house now knows that,
oh, there's a pet here.
Other Amazon drivers have been carjacked.
Amazon says the keyless system will help safely
prevent theft.
The EDV logic will allow the van to drive away without
the key for a short period of time, thus keeping the
driver out of harm's way and eventually turning off
the vehicle once beyond a certain range.
Providing drivers with more efficient and better
detailed routes could improve safety, too.
People are running through stop signs, running through
yellow lights. Everybody I knew was buckling their
seatbelt behind their backs because the time it took
just to buckle your seatbelt, unbuckle your
seatbelt every time was enough time to get you
behind schedule.
Drivers in 2021 told us that when they cut corners, like
leaving their seatbelt off or running stop signs, it
was often because they were rushing to finish their
deliveries after losing time because Amazon's
routing software made a mistake, like not
recognizing a closed road or gated community.
Blocked. Can't get in.
Can't get in. Gate.
Gate. Turn left to enter a private road.
Amazon listened.
It's been adding a huge amount of detail to driver
maps using information from 16 third-party map vendors
and machine learning models informed by satellite driver
feedback and other sources, like a new in-vehicle data
collection system called Fleet Edge.
In a few thousand vans now, Fleet Edge collects
real-time data from a street-view camera and GPS
device during a driver's route.
Due to Fleet Edge, we've added over 120,000 new
street signs to Amazon's mapping system.
The accuracy of GPS locations has increased by
over two-and-a-half times in our test areas, improving
navigation safety by announcing upcoming turns
sooner.
Tomay says by the end of 2022, Amazon added 325,000
new stop signs, 180,000 traffic signals and more.
We also added points of interest, such as coffee
shops and restrooms so drivers can find a spot to
take a break within 5 minutes of a stop for about
95% of cases in metro areas.
There's nothing more clutch than showing up to your
first stop, finding one of these.
Let's go.
In 2021, Amazon had to apologize for dismissing
claims that drivers were urinating in bottles as a
result of demanding delivery schedules.
And then as soon as I opened the van, you know, I'm
looking around, I see a bottle of urine.
I'm like, oh, I'm not touching this.
Natividad started delivering for Amazon in 2021 when the
pandemic dried up his gigs as a full-time DJ.
You're getting paid to exercise. You're getting a
lot of steps in. You know, I lost, within four months
of delivering for Amazon, I lost 20 pounds.
Natividad's shifts with Amazon were usually on the
same route, with at least 200 packages.
Once during last holiday season, he had more than 400
packages and 200 stops in a single shift.
Towards the end of my day, they sent out two rescues to
me to help out to make sure everything's done before 10
hours.
In Baltimore, Dennis says during peak season, her
drivers deliver 350 to 450 packages on each of her
DSP's 40 routes.
And Amazon has a lot of these routes to optimize:
148,000 a day, up to 225,000 in peak.
And then we look at the density of the packages, the
complexity of the locations we're going to deliver to,
and any other considerations like weather
and traffic from past history to put a route
together that we think is ideal.
Another big challenge, Tomay says, is planning for the
vastly different needs of areas with various density.
Given that we're in over 20 countries and every
geography looks different, it's not just about delivery
vehicles or vans anymore.
We have rickshaws in India.
We have walkers in Manhattan.
In Las Vegas, Amazon held a roundtable in the spring for
DSP owners and drivers, where Natividad says he
spoke for 20 minutes about the need for Amazon to
improve its routing algorithms, especially
within small, dense communities like an RV park
where he says the order of drop-offs made little sense.
As soon as I was done talking and reading off my
list, I got this like slow clap going on.
I'm like, okay, everyone here can relate.
Natividad hopes Amazon will keep asking for driver
feedback as it continues to innovate in delivery.
I think they should do that probably like once a month
with all the DSP supervision and a few of the
drivers, and not the same drivers every time.
That way different feedback is given.
And like seriously listen to them because they're not the
ones out there seeing and experiencing what we go
through.
Natividad didn't get to try out the routing technology
in the new vans before he left to deliver for USPS in
July. But he's excited that the Postal Service is
following in Amazon's footsteps with new vans
coming by 2028.
The Postal Service intends to deploy approximately
100,000 vehicles over the next five years, of which
66,000 units will be electric.
More important than new vans for Natividad is the
stability that comes with working directly for the
government, instead of a third party that has a
contract with Amazon that could change at any time.
Working as an Amazon DSP delivery driver, there's
really no long-term effects or goals or incentives or
benefits. I mean, you get like health benefits, but
compared to the post office, where the post
office is a career.
They have union, retirement, a lot more
benefits and pay increases every year.
Pay for Amazon drivers is up to the discretion of each
individual DSP, although Amazon says it regularly
audits DSP rates to make sure they're competitive.
Natividad made$18.50 an hour .
Indeed.com puts average Amazon driver pay at nearly
$19 an hour, 16% higher than the national average.
While tipping isn't worked into the job like it is for
gig workers delivering for Uber and DoorDash, Amazon
did hold a temporary campaign in December that
gave drivers an extra $5 if customers told their device,
"Alexa, thank my driver." And while Rivian vans
represent big improvements for drivers and
sustainability, Amazon is getting new Ram and Ford
gas-powered delivery vans too.
I just found a Ram and a Ford CDV next to each other.
Amazon is also diversifying its electric fleet beyond
Rivian, with thousands of orders in for electric Ram
vans from Stellantis and electric Mercedes-Benz vans
from Daimler. But for now, drivers are eager to see
Amazon keep its current promise of rolling out tens
of thousands more of its Rivian vans soon.
In your dream scenario, would you drive Rivian van
every day?
I would. I mean, you can't.
You can't beat this.
Like you really can't beat it.