Nissan Chief Operating Office Toshiyuki Shiga with the maker's Townpod EV concept.

Nissan Motor Co. has become the latest of the major Japanese automakers to announce a global realignment of its management team.

More than a dozen ranking executives will be shuffled, see their duties increased – or retire.  The moves cover a wide range of operations at Nissan, from marketing to supply chain management to communications, but the maker appears to have put a significant emphasis on its electric vehicle operations.

NMC’s Chief Operating Officer, Toshiyuki Shiga, will now directly overseas planning and strategy for the global battery business unit, an operation Nissan has already invested several billion dollars in, with a second assembly plant for its Leaf battery car recently going into operation in Smyrna, Tennessee.

“These appointments are the second phase of changes we have made in recent months to strengthen both our global and regional management teams,” said Carlos Ghosn, Nissan President and CEO.

The shake-up at Nissan follows an announcement earlier this month at Toyota that saw the maker appoint its first outsider to the board of directors, the once-senior General Motors executive Mark Hogan. Toyota also promoted Jim Lentz, previously head of its U.S. sales subsidiary, to run all of the company’s operations in North and South America.

Honda, meanwhile, also made some major changes in February, among other things moving its corporate headquarters to Ohio – though the larger U.S. sales and marketing offices will remain in Torrance, California. Significantly, Tetsuo Iwamura was also named Honda’s global chief operating officer of automotive operations, while maintaining his current assignment as COO of Honda North America.

Nissan’s management realignment doesn’t stretch nearly as far as those at Toyota and Honda but still appear to be significant, especially with the emphasis on the company’s battery car business.  The second-largest of the Japanese makers has been the most aggressive when it comes to advanced battery propulsion, launching the Leaf in late 2011, while planning a number of other electric vehicles, such as the Infiniti LE luxury model due to market in 2014.

During an appearance at the Geneva Motor Show last month, CEO Ghosn acknowledged that sales of battery cars like the Nissan Leaf have been growing at a slower pace than he had hoped, suggesting, “People want environmentally friendly cars but they don’t want to pay for them.”

The challenge is to drive down costs, in part through greater volume, said Ghosn, who also said that with its need to curb endemic air pollution problems, the real “breakthrough” in the battery-car market will likely occur in China.

“We have to be patient,” Ghosn said of Nissan’s commitment to electrification. “When it takes off, we will be ready.”

Among other changes announced by Ghosn in this week’s management reshuffling, Executive Vice President Hiroto Saikawa will add Chief Competitive Officer to his current duties as head of purchasing and the chairman of operations in Japan, Asia and Oceania.

Also gaining new titles are Simon Sproule, Nissan’s global marketing chief and the new director of global marketing communications for the Renault-Nissan Alliance, the partnership between the Japanese maker and its French ally. Jeff Kuhlman now becomes vice president of global communications.