LOL - We have a friend who splurged on a new Tesla a few years ago. His wife refers to it as “the mistress” (and far prefers it of course to human alternative).
If your oil change was at BMW, perhaps they overestimated the repair bill in hopes of getting a new sale (and an opportunity to fix/sell the trade-in)? It might be worth a 2nd opinion.
Why non-Tesla?
Elon Musk. But really, the new Teslas are mass produced crap.
Have you looked at Lucid? That’s my husband’s dream car. If the Gravity could fit in the garage without modifying the benches, he’d buy it tomorrow.
The Lucid Gravity is well reviewed for performance, space efficiency (probably closer to a minivan than an SUV in that respect), and (for a large SUV) energy efficiency and range, but many reviewers complain about software bugs.
What @BunsenBurner said
Yes, there are complaints. We’ve dealt with a number of bugs in our eight years of X ownership, so quite immune to them; none were serious enough to rip our hair out. 
Software is easy to update OTA. Hardware- not so much. I personally don’t care about being able to watch Netflix in my car!
Well we will have to wait for the Earth. Supposed to be smaller so can fit in the garage (yes, we have specific criteria 
).
My husband has a 2018 Volkswagen Passat. It is not wearing well. Has 133,000 miles on it.
I’d like to replace, he likes having no car payment. I mean so do I but I also like having a car that’s not being repaired. We usually keep our cars longer but this one isn’t aging well.
Got to say that spending almost $50,000 on a decent sedan seems almost criminal. That was the price we saw for a new Toyota Crown.
Geez, I’d like to drive a nice car. But $50,000 for a sedan! Shocked!
There is also a Toyota Crown Signa, a wagon/SUV version. It is a little more expensive for the same trim, but only comes in the lower trims, which start under $50k (but not by that much).
Average new car price is over $50k, according to https://www.kbb.com/car-news/new-record-average-new-car-prices-surpasses-50000/ , but it does not say whether it is mean or median.
Different people prioritize different criteria in cars. If you are at all concerned about reliability, there are some major differences between the models listed above. None are among the most reliable options, but I’d expect you have better odds of long term reliability with the BMW, assuming it is 2nd generation (2021+).
We really liked that Toyota Crown Signa, and it did have a tad bigger cargo area (for husband’s ebike) than the Lexus NX 350H that we ultimately selected. Of course anything smaller than my 2006 Odyssey would have been a step up. But the Signa/NX were especially nice.
@shawbridge 2019 was the last year of production for the 335 GT, for the 2020 model year. What about a newer used car of the same model if it meets your criteria?
We bought this a year ago - we love it especially since it’s hybrid.
I do also value reliability. My BMW was reliable (more brake wear than on some cars, I think) until the last year. I had an Acura before that that was excellent as is my wife’s Acura.
Good thought on a 2020 BMW 335 GT. I do worry about BMWs after the warranty runs out as repairs are expensive.
I have read good things about the Mazda CX-70. Thinking about a PHEV version or EV version (if it exists) when it is time to replace her Acura MDX. She hauls tons of art-related stuff – 4x8 plywood, bags of plaster, tree trunks, … . Not that this weighs anything, but her show coming up in the next month at a museum includes glass containers containing dandelion and milkweed seeds before they have blown away. She was doing this for fun and displayed some of these along with the paintings and prints. The gallery priced them and sold quite a few. But she has had pieces with tree branches coming out of them. So, carrying capacity is important. Maybe next year for that car.
If carrying capacity is the most important factor, why not a van?
She had them for many years and liked the Acura much better in terms of how it feels to drive it. That’s why I was thinking about the CX-70 for her. Seems like a cross between van and an SUV. Only question is whether the top trim level is nice enough for her.
To the extent driving dynamics are a factor for her, I would suggest an extensive test drive of the CX-70. I drove a rented CX-70 a few months ago and heartily disliked it - the driving experience was so computerized and “optimized” that there was really no sense of feedback from the road or even direct response to driving input. Even after turning off the infernal Lane Keeping Assist feature, there were numerous times that I seemed to briefly lose control of the car, presumably due to some kind of electronic safety feature. Perhaps all of these things can be disabled after a little research, but it was very off-putting.
Very helpful.
I’d recommend buying two cars, one gas and one electric.
A nice electric car is a dream to drive; comfortable, luxurious, and faster than you could imagine. The two of you might argue over who gets to make it their primary vehicle.
IMO electric cars have only two drawbacks. The obvious one is the road trip problem. People try to minimize it but it’s real. The other problem is reduced battery efficiency in cold weather. Your mileage will decrease and heating the interior drains the battery too. Heated seats and steering wheels help, but a warm cabin is nice. So your 300 mile range might drop to 200. But since charging at home is so affordable it isn’t really much of an issue for relatively short trips.
As long as you have a nice gas car for longer drives, the electric one will end up being your “go to” car around town.
I’d skip the hybrid altogether. No reason to maintain an extra gas engine.
That makes sense @sherpa. Although we don’t generate much electricity in the winter, we do have a big solar array on our roof (I kept it just under the 25kW limit where it becomes a small business). Snow and cloudy skies in New England limit output a lot. But, my intention was always to use the solar to charge an electric car.
I love my Prius Prime hybrid. We put only about 20 gallons of gas in a year because we mostly do short errands in it and all electric. We plug it in when we aren’t driving it and have PV on our roof. H got a full gas Lexus he’s happy with. It is more luxurious and seats 5 comfortably.