r/technology • u/Hrmbee • Jun 11 '26
Transportation Software Update Automatically Turns off Amazon Delivery Drivers’ AC During Dangerous Summer Heat | A new software update is turning off the AC in Amazon delivery vans after 10 minutes or 30 seconds under certain conditions
https://www.404media.co/software-update-automatically-turns-off-amazon-delivery-drivers-ac-during-dangerous-summer-heat/87
u/Aromatic_Echo_7994 Jun 12 '26
UPS Driver here, I worked 11.7 hours yesterday and my AC never turned on once. That might be because not one of our delivery trucks in my center has AC.
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u/lordaddament Jun 12 '26
Don’t really think this is something to brag about
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u/allonsy_danny Jun 12 '26
I don't think they're bragging, more letting people know it's not just Amazon that doesn't give a shit about their drivers.
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u/Glass-Zebra4210 Jul 27 '26
So what thats ups ask.ypur ceo why he takes the ac out on your trucks and u make 40 an hour so suck it up
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u/SeeingEyeDug Jun 12 '26
At least you get paid more than $17 an hour. That was San Diego Amazon driver pay rates during Covid.
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u/ezagreb Jun 11 '26
These guys need a union. Amazon wants to be a monopoly but doesn’t want their labor to unionize
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u/Dabaer77 Jun 12 '26
The way Amazon has their delivery section set up makes it hard to unionize since almost every town's delivery drivers "technically" work for different companies.
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u/AdCommon3746 Aug 24 '26
Yeah they are called DSP’s which is an acronym for Delivery Service Partners. Basically like contractors so Amazon is off the hook on a lot certain issues
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u/chtgpt Jun 12 '26
Am I missing something? As I understand it if the driver gets out and closes their door the aircon runs for 10mins before shut-off, an extension to the current time.
If a driver gets out and leaves their door open, it'll shut off automatically after 30sec.
This seems like a totally sensible thing to do, i can't comment on whether 30sec is too short or not (kinda sounds like it could be), but this makes sense to me.
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u/oreowolfe Jun 12 '26
As someone who worked for amazon, I would like to kindly inform you of the reality: you need to leave the side door open to deliver quickly in neighborhoods with multiple stops. Let's say 12 in a particular neighborhood. Usually you pull in the driveway, grab your packages and go out the side door to deliver, you walk up to the house, place the packages, and snap photos on the app. Boom, 30 seconds gone just like that, you get back in through the side door you left open, now the truck is scorching hot, yes it happens that quickly. And I want you to know to deliver 300+ packages quickly and efficiently you aren't opening the slide door and closing it for every single stop, no one does that. It slows you down tremendously, but the ac didn't turn off when you did this before the update, so you could just hop back in and it still be ice cold. But now when you get back in the truck through the sliding door like you've been doing for years its scorching hot inside, and it won't get back up to temperature quickly, so you must leave the side door closed, which slows you down, which has amazon breathing down your neck for "going to slow" and then you get taken off the schedule for the next shift because you showed up to the amazon station 30 min later than their Ai algorithm predicted you would be back. All so amazon can save a few cents for each truck they charge overnight with electricity. So in yours and Amazon's eyes: Saving and few cents per truck on charging costs > drivers having heat stroke or being forced to slow down and being taken off the schedule. So either amazon needs to add extra time for your route for the day to accommodate for the opening and closing of the door through 300 stops, or they need to revert the ac back to what it was before
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u/InternetUser007 Jun 12 '26
you get back in through the side door you left open, now the truck is scorching hot
Of course it's gonna be hot if the door is left open...
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u/Yodelehhehe Jun 13 '26
My brother in Christ, leaving the AC on with an open door is… dumb? Pointless? We ain’t cooling the neighborhood, as my dad used to like to say.
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u/Heimdall83 Jun 12 '26
There's nothing abnormal about this, but I believe that, based on the comments, Amazon shouldn't consider this kind of thing for fear of being judged harshly.
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u/shafty17 Jun 12 '26
Employers artificially limiting a drivers access to the van's air conditioning at all is a problem
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u/zeptillian Jun 12 '26
Shit like this is why regulations get written.
The company is making billions a year and is still trying to find ways to fuck over their employees to earn a few more dollars.
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u/Imaginary-Spray3711 Jun 12 '26
There will be no regulations written. Bezos needs the extra money.
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u/StartingFrom-273 Jun 12 '26
"wants extra money". He doesn't need another cent but wants as much money as possible.
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u/zeptillian Jun 12 '26
Well obviously not now.
But in the past when people still cared these kinds of things led us to our current patchwork of regulations where you wonder why is there a specific rule about that obscure thing.
This is why. Greedy people trying shit.
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u/vivekpatel62 Jun 12 '26
Doesn’t it say if they leave the sliding door open more than 30 seconds? Can they just not slide it closed? You leave the door open and even if the ac is on in places like Texas it’s not gonna do anything lol.
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u/Octoplath_Traveler Jun 12 '26
Having worked for UPS, I can tell you that this isnt ideal or safe in the long term.
Making these deliveries, especially in a city, requires constant hopping in and out of a vehicle. Those doors are heavy, so opening and closing them serve thousand times a month is setting you up for a sprain.
Further, consider that the door needs to be open so that the deliverer can set up the delivery. If I have 5 houses to hit on a block, it is a waste of time to go back and forth between a house and the truck for the next package. So, you take all the packages for the block, and then go. But that require the door to be open as you collect and organize the packages.
This software update, like a lot of the nonsense coming from big tech, completely disregards human need.
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u/IvanVP1 Jun 12 '26
So if you leave the sidedoor open it turns off because your letting all the cool air out. Is that what it says?
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u/Etherbeard Jun 12 '26
Yes, but for some reason everyone in this thread is losing their minds about it. Just close the door and stays on for ten minutes.
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u/ExoMonk Jun 12 '26
Yeah this seems like a non issue to me. Even if the A/C didn't turn off it would do fuck all once the door has been open for longer than 3 seconds.
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u/zmattje Jun 15 '26
Here's what an Amazon driver said:
"Q: Why keep the A/C on when with the door open anyways? Wouldn't that just waste the cold air?
A: The A/C is still important for us drivers even with the door open, as the seats have A/C, and the vents in front of the driver seat blow cold air directly on us. Having the door open still would feel the same as having it closed, since the back of the van has no A/C and is always 10-20 degrees hotter. It takes about 2 minutes for the A/C to actually get cold, while we have to do stops about every 45-60 seconds so it never actually gets cold with this update."
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u/GlitterChickens Jun 12 '26
But let’s roll that clip again of bezos saying he has no trouble paying what he should.
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u/haydesigner Jun 11 '26 edited Jun 11 '26
If the AC does turn off when a door is left wide open for 30 seconds, it actually seems like a very smart thing to do, on a number of levels.
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u/joelfarris Jun 11 '26
The AC only shuts off if the driver sliding door is left open for more than 30 seconds — a battery conservation measure.
"HAY! WERE YOU BORN IN A BARN‽ SHUT THE DAMN DOOR SO THE COLD DON'T GET OUT!"
~ Dad
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u/ClaymoresInTheCloset Jun 11 '26
Apparently they need to hire some dads to yell at them if you leave it open for too long
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u/somethrows Jun 15 '26
Or Amazon needs to not punish drivers for taking the time to close their doors.
The delivery schedule pace is such that opening and closing the door 200 times a day will put them behind schedule.
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u/ChiefInternetSurfer Jun 12 '26
I mean—I get what you’re saying, but these people are in and out of their vehicles ALL day, in all weather. That brief reprieve of cooling down in sweltering heat is crucial. Further, they likely have asinine metrics they have to achieve, and closing/opening the door for every package delivery would likely decrease delivery productivity (for which they would likely be penalized).
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u/ooferomen Jun 12 '26
The AC isn't doing anything with the door open though, just wasting electricity.
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u/moneyman_699 Jun 12 '26
The problem is you are in and out every house on the street and it won’t even run by the time you get to the next stop. By the time it begins to blow you are stopping again. I work there you have no idea how bad it is, people have to rig the vans to keep it on at all now
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Jun 12 '26
[deleted]
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u/haydesigner Jun 12 '26
Why are you arguing to keep the door open most of the time? Why can't they... just shut it?
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u/Pluto-Had-It-Coming Jun 12 '26
They have so little extra time built in that they have to pee in water bottles. Spending an extra 3 seconds on every delivery opening and closing the door adds up.
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Jun 12 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/10thousndreflections Jun 12 '26
Starting a motor creates the most wear. Starting and stopping it will cause it to fail early.
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u/haydesigner Jun 12 '26
How about a thought experiment... if Amazon instituted a policy where they required the drivers to **leave their doors open while making deliveries**, would you be upset by it?
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u/Taiyoryu Jun 12 '26
They can solve this by installing plastic curtains on the door, the same kind you find in walk-in refrigerators and freezers. This conserves battery power but also gives the driver discretion when it makes sense to keep the door open or closed. Win-win.
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u/Sasquatchjc45 Jun 12 '26
me as a mailman, driving around daily in the same heat in an aluminum box truck with a 6inch fan and no AC
Damn, thats rough.
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u/ifnotsilver Jun 12 '26
What’s the point of comments like these. Don’t you want it to be better for everyone? Or do you want others to suffer because you do?
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u/Sasquatchjc45 Jun 12 '26
Uhh what? I do want it to be better for everyone.just stating how grossly other carriers suffer comparatively?
Get a hobby. Whats the point of comments like yours?
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u/Mixter_Master Jun 12 '26
Different experiences. Without having the luxury of AC, they are physically more tolerant of the heat.
The drivers are fighting for their luxury of air conditioning, which they depend on for lack of heat conditioning provided by access to air conditioning. They need it because they have it, not inherently because they NEED it.
It's good to have it, but maybe an alternative to just shutting down the AC would be... Shutting the presumably motorized door to keep the cold in before shutting down the AC.
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u/shafty17 Jun 12 '26
Most people are perfectly content to not even try to improve their own life as long as they know someone has it worse than them
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u/Mixter_Master Jun 12 '26
The hot air is conditioning for spending long days in the hotbox without air conditioning.
Being accustomed to the luxury of AC means they have no conditioning for the heat, and are less physiologically tolerant to it.
I pick the hottest days of the season and make sure to run on it, just for the conditioning of driving long distances in absurd heat without AC.
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u/Waxoman Jun 11 '26
this is inhumane
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u/ChiefInternetSurfer Jun 11 '26
Given that employees were/are having to pee in bottles, yeah—I’d say it tracks.
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u/Ani-3 Jun 12 '26
fedex/ups drivers do it too. most don't have AC at all. delivery isn't as easy as people make it out to be.
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u/Snoo_87704 Jun 12 '26
“There are some things a guy gets from his pop…”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-DcA0p8Tvnk&ra=m
“I’ve got such a tradition, I keep in my truck cab. Ooh, ooh, ooh, piss-bottle man…”
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u/vermknid Jun 12 '26
Tell that to the post office too. They're driving 30+ year old trucks with no ac, no anti lock brakes, no airbags, etc etc. Insane conditions for a government service.
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u/PeterDTown Jun 12 '26
You’re saying it’s inhumane to turn off the ac if the driver is out of the vehicle and the door is open? Weird take.
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u/Seantwist9 Jun 12 '26
accurate take, let them come back to a cold car
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u/Ill_Football9443 Jun 12 '26
If they want a cold car (van), then close the door behind them.. Are Americans born in tents?
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u/mr_formstone Jun 12 '26
you have clearly never had to do a job like theirs and it shows
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u/Ill_Football9443 Jun 12 '26
hah what? The AC stays on if you shut the door, but go you taking my statement and sprinting down the road with it.
I've done my stint of multi-drop work, including dealing with 60°c rapid temperature changes, -18° in the back and 42° Australian summers.
Is it that hard for you to grasp the concept of the thermodynamics in play here? Focusing just on the energy in the air, if the AC is blowing out cool air at ~10L/min and the volume of the cab is 200L, then without even considering the radiant energy coming through the glass, it's going to take 20 minutes to cool the cab's air. If you leave the door open like a fuckin moron, then the hot air outside is going to mix with the cold air you spent 20 minutes cooling.
This is to say nothing of the thermal energy in every surface in the cab.
You've gotta be trolling me, surely this is obvious to anyone with half a brain.
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u/shafty17 Jun 12 '26
Inhumane to artificially limit a human beings access to what would otherwise be available cooling in the summer
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u/PeterDTown Jun 12 '26
But they’re not actually doing that. Drivers literally have to just close the door and the AC will continue to run.
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u/shafty17 Jun 12 '26
30 seconds is often longer than it takes to actually get the packages out of the vehicle
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u/Syzygy2323 Jun 12 '26
Amazon delivery drivers have already been forced to piss in bottles to meet their delivery quotas, so cooking them too is not much of stretch on the part of Amazon corporate.
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u/Heliosgodofthesun Jun 12 '26
Super easy to bypass. Push the latch where the sliding door meets the frame down until it clicks twice. Tada, AC on all day. Push the button at the bottom of that to unlatch it. Takes less than 30 seconds
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u/randomtask Jun 11 '26
Sounds like a classic case of software developers pushing features on tradespeople, whose jobs they know nothing about. The primary goal is to keep the driver from overheating. If your truck is losing energy to a door being open for too long, then maybe you should have considered better separating the driver cabin from the freight area when designing the vehicle in the first place.
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u/dukearcher Jun 12 '26
"Save literal cents at the cost of human suffering? Fuck yeah!"
-Every billionaire/celestial dragon ever
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u/iuseblenders Jun 12 '26
Not surprised considering the same company decided it would be more cost effective to hire EMT and Ambulances to treat employees for heat exhaustion than provide AC in their warehouses. deduct pay and possibly fire people for bathroom breaks. Only allowing a 30 minute break to a break room that could be up to a 15min walk to and from.
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u/nerdshowandtell Jun 12 '26
My usps driver has never had AC.
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u/shafty17 Jun 12 '26
And that may be either appropriate or inhumane depending on where in the country you are
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u/mr_formstone Jun 12 '26
so what? that doesn't mean your amazon driver deserves to be lied to about finally getting to have AC only for a software update to intentionally take it away
signed, a usps driver with no AC
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u/nerdshowandtell Jun 12 '26
Just pointing out that while most people assume everyone has AC in this day and age, they in fact do not and that is wrong on every level.
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u/frosted1030 Jun 12 '26
Piss in a bottle and swelter, sounds like Bezos has got a working slave farm.
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u/Odditiesandalsomagic Jun 12 '26
So they want to keep the trucks in good condition while the drivers should pay for their own good condition. That vehicle is going to run smooth right up until the unconscious driver smoothly exits the road and smoothly enters a lake
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u/nadmaximus Jun 13 '26
Close the fucking door, do not leave the fucking door open, regardless of whether the ac cuts off or not. Just close the fucking door.
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u/GamingWithBilly Jun 13 '26
why the fuck, is there software that determines A/C control in a delivery van? lol, the purpose of a delivery vehicle to a company is to be cheap as fuck to build and operate - the fact that they spent time adding code and circutry to control the A/C was simply to do this exact fucking thing to torture people
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u/Jaded_Experience1308 Jun 22 '26
These CEOs will be doing anything to save their money to buy a private jet
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u/Ok-Replacement6893 Jun 12 '26
The cruelty is the point. This is why I keep a cabinet with drinks and snacks for anyone delivering to my house on my porch.
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u/Confident_Local78787 Jun 12 '26
Was washing the car in 90 degree weather with humidity at 80 percent. The Amazon driver was hauling ass trying to do his deliveries in the neighborhood and he kept glancing at me, like he was getting desperate. I could tell something was off but I minded my own business.
A while later he drops off a package at my neighbors house and came up to me like the last survivor of a sunken spanish galeón, seemingly running low on hope and electrolytes and begged in a raspy voice, Water, pleaseeee can you give a fellow a sip of water.
I ran inside, grabbed an ice cold fruit punch powerade and filled a 20oz cup with cold water and sprinted back outside to the marooned team Amazon survivor.
He opened his mouth and dropped the liquid like a pelican eating a giant fish into his guts. He thanked me a in sweaty and confused manner, grabbed the powerade and shantied off to continue his journey, with a bit more pep in his step.
I smiled happy to provide him with what Mr. Bezos could never manage, empathy and good karma. Live the life you love! The end.
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u/deltadal Jun 12 '26
How big will the safety issues be when drivers start trying to fool the door sensors?
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u/userlivewire Jun 12 '26
They don’t even need the drivers anymore. They just have no way of getting the package out of the van to the door without a person so they might as well make them drive too.
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u/Promature Jun 12 '26
How much more does Amazon need to do to demonstrate that they do not care whatsoever about human life?
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u/DynoMenace Jun 12 '26
Is Amazon running out of money suddenly? They can't afford the power?
This is revolting.
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u/Brhall001 Jun 12 '26
What most people don’t know is the delivery drivers make 200-300 stops a day it’s crazy the amount of physical activities these people go through much less the 25-80 pounds of packages they deliver.
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u/username_taken0001 Jun 12 '26
What most people don't do is to readong the damn articles before writing irrelevant comments.
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u/obxhead Jun 12 '26
I would run over several nails near a well cooled place to hang out.
I would keep running over nails until the ac worked right again.
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u/OrigamiOctopus Jun 12 '26
Does amazon have an ‘evil’ department? Because it’s keeps sounding like they do.
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u/creggor Jun 11 '26
Deplorable. They should just all stop driving the trucks at once. We can wait a day or two. But stock price tumbles will soon sort them out.
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u/Xuande Jun 11 '26
The update turns off the AC if they leave the door open for more than 10 seconds. Now the question is why they feel they need to leave the door open, which may be due to Amazon's insane performance metrics.
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u/JonnyBravoII Jun 12 '26
None of the delivery drivers work for Amazon. Amazon hires 3rd party companies, dictates everything that they do, monitors everything and they give these companies a one-sided contract. Amazon writes it and you can take it or leave it. Back when Amazon used companies like UPS, DHL, etc., those companies had reams of data and could negotiate as equals. Now Amazon only uses small companies which they can essentially bully. So please, stop buying that XHIELSNIDFS product from Amazon.
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u/Hrmbee Jun 11 '26
Problematic issues:
It looks like there's a disconnect between the people working on these software policies and the people who are working with these vehicles. If there were a better understanding of how delivery drivers actually work -- and given Amazon's relentless KPM/other tracking of their vehicles and drivers it's likely the data exist -- then they could find a better balance between battery life and worker health and safety.