Well, the guy does seem friendly enough, so sticking with it is probably the right choice. Fingers crossed. I certainly would suggest something like a full tank or an extended test drive in the 508 PSE.
In regards to the PHEV particulars, all correct. We do have off street parking (charger already installed, since the grant for it changed 1st of april, we had it installed before to take advantage of it), and most of our journeys are 30 miles or less (Golf GTE has 37 miles electric range according to VW, so 30 miles on A and B-roads should be possible), meaning the majority of journeys will stay fully electric.
You can charge across the pavement, it’s not illegal. It’s just not great, since if someone trips over the cable, you could be held liable. There’s no law (not sure about byelaws in certain regions of course) preventing you from doing it, if you for example get a cable ramp, it’s reasonably doable.
There are downsides to PHEVs, like long motorway journeys for example, where the advantage melts for the most part, but in our “cost-analysis”, we could save over £700 a year in petrol. That was before electricity (and petrol) went up in price though, so no idea where we stand now – pretty sure it still is noticeable savings, just no idea how much it’d be.
If you can’t feasibly charge at home, then yes, PHEV are entirely pointless. That being said, if we went pure petrol, we probably would’ve looked at the new DS4 over the 308 (the DS4 PHEV is £8000 AP, so that obviously wasn’t gonna happen). Without having sat in either, to be fair. So if push comes to shove, if pure ICE is an option, that could be another one to look at depending on how your situation develops.