AURORA | With 16 plug-in vehicles already in the city of Aurora’s fleet, staff are looking beyond city hall in their efforts to get gas guzzlers off the streets.

In a partnership with Tynan’s Nissan on South Havana Street, the city helped promote a group-buy program that has so far resulted in the sale of 25 Nissan Leaf electric cars since early September.

Noor Shaikh, a management analyst for the city and one of the staffers who crafted the plan, said 25 is a significant number considering it almost equals the 29 Leafs Tynan’s sold through the first eight months of the year.

The promotion — which includes discounts and rebates that drop the vehicle’s price to $8,000 — runs through Nov. 10.

City officials earlier this year asked several local dealerships to craft a group-buy program that the city would help promote, and Tynan’s replied with a deal on the Leaf, said Lori Mackenzie, a spokeswoman for the city.

Michael Lawson, manager of special projects for the city, said the program doesn’t cost any additional resources.

“We’re not allocating any additional money, we’re just using our normal communication channels to help promote it,” he said. “There’s no liability to us, we just kind of helped start the conversation.”

That promotion included using the city’s presence on Nextdoor.com to reach out to thousands of local residents telling them about the program.

The program is a first for Tynan’s Aurora location, but their sister store in Fort Collins participated in a similar program with that city, said Markus Kamm, director of sales for Tynan’s Nissan and Volkswagen.

Kamm said the program is way to boost the number of gas and emission-free vehicles on the road.

“The whole idea is to get some combustion-engine vehicles off the road, hopefully older ones,” he said.

While the vehicles mean drivers don’t have spend their cash on gas, Kamm said that is rarely the primary motivator for shoppers looking at the Leaf.

“They really want to do something better for the environment,” he said.

The vehicles have a range of about 80 to 100 miles, Kamm said, depending on the trim package. That means drivers need to find one of the charging stations that dot the metro area if they go for a long ride.

Kamm said the city could use more charging stations, but the situation is steadily improving.

“The infrastructure is way better that it ever was, but more charging locations will mean the electric vehicle is more viable for more people,” he said.

According to city data, there are 32 public chargers at four locations around town: city hall, the Hyatt Convention Center, the Iliff Station light rail parking garage and the police and fire department’s joint training facility near the Arapahoe County Fairgrounds.

The city also has 13 plug-in hybrid vehicles in use by the police, fire and finance departments, and another three for general use by other city departments.

“We’re trying to reduce our carbon footprint like a lot of other people are, while being good fiscal stewards,” Lawson said.