Please don’t tell me the author believes “Amazon had to learn how to . . . call the power company.” Sure the folks at fleet services are different from AWS, warehouses, etc. in the big picture all of Amazon is devoted to transforming electricity into valuable services. Maybe the question is whether or not Amazon sees value in taking over the power companies jobs.
To get there, Amazon had to learn how to pick up the phone and call the power company. Electric utilities, which to that point primarily dealt with electric vehicles through powering the odd home car charging setup, encountered a new type of customer in Amazon.
I think the point the author is making here is that calling the electric utility about charging dozens or hundreds of vans is different than checking in to make sure your home setup doesn't violate utility policy.
Amazon is very often in a position to dictate terms of an agreement, but here they needed the utility's assistance. Amazon had to figure out how to negotiate the landscape.
The article even mentioned the difference involved. You buy a warehouse you might need 50 or 100 KWh. Everyone planned for that when the facility was built.
Want to charge 200 vans? Now you’re talking megawatts. You have to talk to the utility about upgrading their lines and stations and such.
“Hi. PG&E? We want to 100x our overnight power usage! That’s good right?”
That’s not a normal call they’d have had to do before.
To get there, Amazon had to learn how to pick up the phone and call the power company. Electric utilities, which to that point primarily dealt with electric vehicles through powering the odd home car charging setup, encountered a new type of customer in Amazon.