Public Service Co. of New Mexico announced Nov. 18 it is converting its vehicle fleet to electric hybrids, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

The company announced a long-term strategy to switch most, if not all, of its 450 cars, pickups and trucks to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, beginning with seven cars now, plus six pickups and 10 new bucket trucks throughout December. It will continue to replace standard fleet vehicles with electric hybrids as those cars and trucks are changed out in the future, said Aubrey Johnson, PNM vice president of operations.

The company also established a new partnership with Nissan Motors to open five electric charging stations in Albuquerque and Santa Fe next year that will allow the public to charge up their vehicles for free.

PNM averages 15.1 miles per gallon with its light-duty fleet, compared to an estimated 75 miles per gallon with hybrid electrics. The company expects to save about 16,200 gallons of gas per year for every 20 vehicles it replaces with plug-ins, as well as about $500 in annual maintenance savings for each electric vehicle in its fleet, the Journal reported.

Regarding environmental benefits, each sedan plug-in is projected to lower the company’s greenhouse gas emissions by 27.85 metric tons per year, and each battery-operated boom truck by 18.52 metric tons.

Meanwhile, a cloud-based software system that tracks all PNM vehicles will help measure performance of the electric hybrids compared with the standard fleet, said Tim Taylor, client solutions officer for Telogis, the California company that runs the system.

Taylor said individual stations will be tracked to help determine which areas need more stations, reported the Journal.