The Netherlands is very bicycle friendly. Currently public transport is free for me as a student, but nevertheless I do the commute by bike around twice a week, it's a 35 mile round trip though. I'll have to pay for transport myself in around two years though, so I hope to combine commuting by bike every dry day and taking the car every wet day. I genuinly enjoy the ride so an electric bike would be unnecessary.
The Corolla's we have come with the same engines, although you guys get the larger 1.8 ZZ engine compared to our 1.6. No worries though, the majority of the commute would be at a steady state of around 80km/h
An older E100 Corolla or an early Honda Fit are two other serious contenders though, its just that the aero of the liftback E110 seems slightly better, and the Honda Fit is slightly more expensive used (it would take more mileage to be able to justify the price difference). We also have a lot of Suzuki Swifts (Geo Metro's) but I'd like to take my bike in the trunk with me
