Hydrogen is very appealing, but the lack of a distribution system makes it highly unlikely. It's hard to see Toyota and Honda continuing to make hydrogen cars much longer. Maybe for trucks?
I can see it entering special markets first, like long haul trucking, and become more widespread from that. Time will tell if that actually will happen.
If you consider the whole chain of energy conversions, hydrogen has a very poor efficiency:
- electrolysis to split water; or super heated steam to split methane. 30%-40%: at best.
- compressing it for transport at typically 300bar: not sure; but it isn't free (theromdynamics). And also, some of the hydrogen is likely to slip away. Let's be generous and call it 80%
- transporting it by truck or via pipes takes more energy. Also hydrogen trucks have a pretty pathetic energy density compared to e.g. a truck load of diesel. You need a lot of trucks. Which need fuel (and let's assume that is hydrogen) At about 18:1 ratio. And some more of it slips away. So, let's be generous again and call that 95% efficient.
- fueling the car/truck uses compressors, pumps and cooling (expanding gases produce heat). This too is not free.
- finally you have the choice of using it in a fuel cell at 70-80% efficiency or burning it in a combustion engine; which is more like 40% efficiency.
If you multiply all of that you end up with the reason why using hydrogen for transport is an absolute last resort because of all the energy losses that you still have to pay for.
25% efficient would be pretty good. It's probably much worse than that. Some of it might be fixable but the laws of thermodynamics just aren't very flexible. There is no magical solution to many of these inefficiencies.
So 4x the fuel cost, or drive an electrical truck. Easy choice for a lot of companies. Especially if they can generate their own cheap power.