Hi lab
Same boat here for myself but a warning about the Kuga and scooter space.
I use a hoist (also gone up in price by 100% plus) and load the scooter fully assembled except the captain chair, the scooter has all round suspension so its length is 41” and does not fit in the Kuga.
The new Kuga has sliding back seats that lock forward and that gives an extra 5” of boot length so from memory makes the boot length about 40”. This is not a problem if you don’t need the back seats or maybe only need one of them because you can lay them flat and there’s plenty of room, much the same with many other cars not being a problem if you only need a two seat car.
Pavement scooters without suspension can be found with lengths down to 38” but judging by your condition would guess you need the suspension.
I also did some measurement of the VW Tiguan SWB that also now has the slide and lock back seats and with them slide and locked forward the space measured in the boot was 41” and going by that my scooter should fit but not 100% confident in my measurements.
I as told by a helpful fellow forum user that the RAV4 has a boot length of 39” and the back seats are fixed and only fold flat, had they had the slide and lock feature might have been a go go for myself.
If you don’t use the back seats of your car or if your able to dismantle the scooter before loading all this is irrelevant but I have no answers for massive price increases.