Car!

 

Well after much waffling I decided to go with

2025 RENAULT CLIO HATCHBACK 1.6 E-TECH full hybrid 145 Esprit Alpine 5dr Auto, ~8600 miles

I was kind of all over the place in my process. Our work has many charging points at very good price, so I was considering a plug in hybrid. In the plug in hybrids 2025 brought newer batteries so they can drive 80-90 miles electric only. 

I did some calculations (with AI of course) full hybrid vs mild hybrid (think original prius) vs gas. Strangely the older plug in hybrid with 40 miles range was cheaper to operate (using predicted commute length).

In the end the car below was on hand (didnt have to pay delivery fee from another dealer) , had good warranty, is a supermini (so not as small as a mini/compact class but also not too large) - so not too long or wide. 

This car ended up in the middle of commute cost, size and was the cheapest with longest warranty of 6 cars I was looking at.

Car has most of the bells and whistles. the only nice to have from US that its missing is sunroof which seems less common here.

Interestingly all cars seem to have speed limit awareness. they report the speed limit and will ring noise when you exceed (this can be disabled).

It also looks like they dont patrol for speeding they just have many radar cameras and the roads mark where they are.

snazzy lights at night time

so how common is blue, well had AI analyze parking lot at work (yes stupid uses of AI...)

Silver / Grey / Slate (~38) 

Black / Dark Grey / Charcoal (~30)

White / Cream (~23)

Blue (~11)

Red / Maroon (~8)Yellow / Gold (~1)

hope this means I wont get confused in a parking lot finding my car. I would say >70% of the cars I was looking at were black

So far car is showing 53 mpg in driving around which isnt half bad