I moved from Europe back to the US Midwest this spring. While I'm still getting my financial situation stabilized, I will at some point in the next year or so need to buy my own car (currently I am living with my parents and borrowing their cars as needed). Given the state of the world and gas prices, an electric car seems like a no-brainer to me. Less maintenance and with current gas prices I'd save money even if I could only charge at the stations in my neighborhood, much less if I install something simple at home. I'm an anxious driver and have incredibly little desire to drive long distances, so range is also not super important to me.

The problem I've found is that I'm not a "car person" and I'm not sure how to find and pick the right car for me. I figure we've got some car people here on Tildes who will have a better idea of the market and manufacturers involved.

My parameters:

• No Tesla. This is non-negotiable. I will buy an ICE vehicle before I get a Tesla.
• Nothing super luxury. I'm not made of money. I know there aren't any really cheap electric cars available that I'd dream of here in the States yet, but I want to stay as affordable as possible.
• I do not want anything bigger than a sedan. SUVs and crossovers make me nervous and I want to drive a small car.
  • A hatchback would actually be my preferred form factor, but I don't think there's many options of that size. The only one I've found upon searching is the Fiat 500e, which appeals to me for that reason.
  • ICE cars who appeal to me in terms of size and design include the MINI Cooper 2-door, the Volkswagen beetle, and the Kia soul.
• I'm not wed to getting a new car, but as an anxious driver (thus wanting a lot of the fancy modern safety features and alerts) and someone who isn't super knowledgeable about cars (thus not wanting to rely on my own ability to spot a dud before buying it), I'm leaning towards it. I'll take suggestions for used cars to look for, but keep in mind that since I'm in the Midwest, there may be a smaller pool of used EVs available for me to buy locally.

Specifically the 1st generation Leaf. I'm curious if this is a viable used car option. I know Nissan discontinued the platform and I heard rumblings that there wasnt much support / repair parts available from Nissan. Is this true? If it is true, is it a car that can be repaired easily yourself? Is there a community for 3rd party parts and new batteries?

I won't be surprised if this is moved to ~misc or something, I thought transport might be most appropriate since it's about EV's, but I'm probably wrong.

I made the jump to an EV this week (Ioniq 5), and for the first time, I'm charging away from home. My work has free level 2 chargers (via ChargePoint), but I can't for the life of me activate the charger by tapping my phone to the terminal, I have to activate it through the app.

When I tap my phone (Pixel 9 Pro), it seems to act like I'm tapping a credit card, I get an error screen:

Card rejected error
Card not supported

The only things I can find online are in response to iOS people who apparently have to add a virtual ChargePoint card to their wallet, but from what I've read, this isn't necessary on Android since the ChargePoint app can interface directly with the phone's NFC capabilities.

I'd appreciate any tips on where I may be going wrong.