Amazon ends an experiment started in 2023 to make same-day deliveries with drivers in Kia Souls and will rely on Amazon Flex drivers who use their own cars
Matt Day / Bloomberg : Bluesky: @quinnypig.com Bluesky: Corey Quinn / @quinnypig.com : Their quest to be a Soul-less company continues. [embedded post]
Context & Ripple Effects
Amazon has long used Flex as a self-employed last-mile workforce, while reporting has shown the app can algorithmically hire, rate, and remove contract drivers with limited human oversight. It also tested using that network beyond Amazon’s own inventory through mall-retailer deliveries.
The end of the Kia-based trial matters because it shifts same-day fulfillment back toward a delivery model Amazon already operates at scale, rather than a dedicated-vehicle experiment.
First-order effects
- Amazon will discontinue the Kia Soul-based same-day delivery setup and route the work through Flex drivers’ personal vehicles.
- Flex drivers become the immediate delivery capacity for these orders, with vehicle provision and associated day-to-day operating responsibility remaining with individual drivers.
Second-order effects
- Amazon’s local delivery operations can concentrate on dispatching and managing a flexible contractor pool instead of maintaining a separate vehicle-based program.
- The change reinforces the importance of Flex’s app-based allocation and performance systems, since those systems determine who can absorb same-day volume.
Third-order effects
- If similar experiments are wound down, fast delivery may increasingly be organized around asset-light, on-demand driver networks rather than dedicated fleets for each service variant.
- That model makes contractor governance—especially the transparency and recourse around algorithmic decisions—a more consequential part of last-mile delivery infrastructure.
The trend: Same-day logistics is continuing to favor platform-managed, driver-supplied capacity over specialized delivery assets where flexible networks can meet demand.