HFCs are roughly two and a half times more efficient than their ICE-powered variants, but less than a pure EV. Then you factor in the KW used to produce hydrogen and energy used to transport and store it, HFC tech’s net efficiency is much lower than Pure EV Tech.
It’s much more efficient to generate electricity, transmit it through power lines, put it through a charger, and into an EV’s battery than generating energy, transmitting it, using it to produce hydrogen, compressing it, transporting it, storing it, and pumping it into a HFC vehicle; which BTW already has a battery comparable in size to a pure EV. But it also has large hydrogen tanks, fuel cells, and other electric system components making the system large, heavy, expensive, and complicated.

Then there is the infrastructure issue. Hydrogen stations are much more expensive to make and take up more space than a fast charge station like Tesla’s upgradeable Supercharger stations. A low cost Level II EV charger can be installed nearly anywhere. It’s cheaper to make pure EVs; their infrastructure is far cheaper and can be expanded more quickly and more densely; and the tech is constantly improving. Why would you invest in hydrogen?

Switching from gas to hydrogen is like switching from cocaine to heroine. You might be switching dealer, but you’re still addicted!

So the author does not see any expensive problems with the creation and storage of hydrogen? She only sees the fuel cells as a problem? Things must be improving faster than I can follow…

It will come down to cost. Will it be cheaper to build personal vehicles with high capacity batteries or to use fewer batteries and a ICE or fuel cell?

Batteries have a very large advantage in that a lot of energy is lost converting electricity to hydrogen. That would make the cost of a hydrogen FCEV more expensive per mile.

And then we’d have to build a hydrogen infrastructure which would further increase costs. If we used hydrogen only as a range extender on long trips we could minimize the cost of hydrogen infrastructure by needing far less than if we tried to drive on hydrogen 100% of the time.

If we include external costs then the math becomes quite different.
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Hydrogen cracked from water using renewable energy is going to track the cost of renewable energy.

This graphic shows where energy is lost with hydrogen fuel cell vehicles vs. EVs. The cheaper the electricity input, the cheaper the hydrogen. (But it makes more sense to go the EV route.)