They are Haverhill Public Schools' six new electric-powered Ford E-Transit school bus vans the city acquired last summer through a lease-to-own program over a five-year period with the help of a $200,000 state earmark for electric school buses.
The earmark was used as a down payment and the vans are in year one of their lease program.
"They replaced aging gas-powered special education 7D vans," said Assistant Superintendent Michael Pfifferling, adding the new six-student passenger electric vans being used to transport students with special needs supplement the school district's own fleet of gas powered vehicles, which includes more than 20 vans and six mini-buses.
Pfifferling said the fleet is currently a mix of gas and electric vehicles and these are the first vehicles on the school side that utilize electric powered technology.
Yesenia Altamirano, who has worked as a driver for Haverhill's schools for the past six years, says she loves the new, virtually silent vans.
"They are very, very quiet," she said.
While the school department makes plans to install electric charging stations at Haverhill High School for its new fleet of electric vans, the vehicles have been parked in front of the Goecke Parking Deck, where they share charging stations with members of the public.
Because the charging stations are just inside the parking garage, and the new vans are too tall to enter the garage, the vans park in front of the deck and use power cords to connect with the charging stations.
Pfifferling said the vans are parked at the garage at night and for a few hours during the day when they are not supporting student transportation.
"We are in the process of installing charging stations at Haverhill High School and expect to have the vans located at HHS at some point this spring," he said.
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