I'll agree, in his tests the iMiev and the G-Wiz came out ahead of the Aygo and Panda. However, the G-Wiz isn't really a car. It's an enclosed moped on four wheels, with little cargo room and no crash safety. The iMiev is an electric keicar, which is fine if that's all you need. But to compare it to an Aygo isn't quite apples-to-apples.
The Aygo starts at 9575 Euro in Germany. That's 2100 Euro less than a base model Yaris, which has a 1.0L and a stick. The Aygo is engineered to be a very cheap car. But for vastly less than the price of the batteries and motor in the iMiev, you could have something more efficient than a 1.0L gas engine. A hybrid Aygo would certainly beat the CO2 figures of a BEV Aygo, and there would be room left in the hybrid's budget for things like an aluminium unibody, active aerodynamics, and all the goodies we wish automakers would spend money on to save us fuel.
I think the first apples-to-apples comparison will be the Focus BEV vs Focus HEV vs EcoBoost Focus in 2012 or 2013. I expect the BEV to be roughly on par with the ICE-only focus in terms of CO2, which will be very disappointing considering the price of each of the three.
I'm happy to see that Mr. Boxwell has come with the same upstream refining efficiency figure
as I have: around 83%.