AP Photo

At the Detroit Auto Show early this month, I sat down with some Nissan executives who were celebrating the sale of the 10,000th Leaf battery car in the U.S. (and 20,000th worldwide). Behind them on the company’s stand was the eNV200, a plug-in version of one of Nissan’s minivans and one of three new electric cars Nissan will have on the road by 2015. Brendan Jones, a Nissan marketing and sales strategist, told me, “From a Leaf perspective, 2011 was a great year, and very positive for the company.” He said that Nissan’s EV sales had topped those of any other automaker in history. . .