The problem is that while electricity is ubiquitous,there are very few places to refill hydrogen, almost all are in upscale California neighborhoods.

Batteries probably won't always take too long to charge. Ranges are already pretty good for the best electric cars. 200+ mile ranges and 1 hour charges are reality, NOW.

Hydrogen might look like the better solution on paper, but the fact is in practice it's totally inefficient with current power generation technology. It wastes far too much energy to produce the hydrogen.

In order to get the hydrogen, you have to generate vast amounts of electricity to do electrolysis to say split water. It's an extremely inefficient process. Or use a bunch of energy again steam reforming other hydrocarbons which we're trying to get away from....

Whichever way you get it currently, it's pretty dirty and wasteful. We cannot afford to waste so much energy generating precious electricity, using it to produce hydrogen expensively, compressing it, moving it, and then using that hydrogen to get electricity again to power a car. Each step in the chain lowers efficiency. The end chain efficiencies are abysmal.

Then there is the distribution network or storage of hydrogen for private vehicles, of which there is basically none on the planet except California,. It's expensive and difficult. A vast hydrogen network would be a hugely costly and difficult undertaking.

The difference with pure electric is you just generate it from whatever renewable you feel like, and shove it directly into the car's battery from an outlet. Efficiencies can be very high. Electrical outlets being everywhere. Simple.

This is why electric cars will win, once the battery technology improves a little and more energy is generated by renewables.

Tesla have nearly 300,000 pre orders for the Tesla Model 3. Electric cars are gonna win, and easily. The only way hydrogen can win is if we suddenly invent a renewable energy source that produces vast amounts of electricity cheaply that we can waste on making hydrogen. Good luck with that.

Batteries for a car will always take much longer to charge than it does to pump fuel, it's just basic physics.

You just can't transfer that much electrical energy in a very short time without massive voltage or current, both of which have practical problems for a consumer product.

And hydrogen can be produced extremely cleanly using excess power from renewable and nuclear generation.

With solar and wind power you get power whether you want it not, so when supply exceeds demand you can make hydrogen. Plus there are other methods of hydrogen generation in various states of development.

And if someone ever does figure out a commercially viable working fusion reactor then electricity availability becomes a non-issue.

Everyone knows batteries will take longer than a few minutes to charge, however if the correct technologies are applied, quick charges could easily get charge time below half an hour and at least add over one hundred miles on an electric vehicle at typical charging stations.

So the question actually is- how many journeys are undertaken by how many people where you would need many multiple charges so fast? On a vehicle that can do say 250 miles on a full charge, and another 150 after let's say half an hour of charging?

The answer would be very very few. For all intents and purposes, a 250 mile range electric car is more than enough for the vast majority of people. 250 miles is totally realistic in 2016 technology. Even incremental improvements will probably see 300 miles becoming a norm for affordable electric vehicles within 5 years.

Hydrogen production for cars is a total waste of energy. Excess energy from stations wouldn't remotely cover the energy requirements for only a few hundred thousand hydrogen powered cars in most countries, but it could charge many, many more electric only vehicles off peak times- i.e when you're asleep.

Fusion energy will be the sole hope of hydrogen powered vehicles, a technology that would revolutionise the world's energy supply.

Except it's always just 50 years away, no matter what year it is....

Then you have to address the fact the hydrogen fuel cell itself and the car is still expensive to build. Tesla have a factory coming online that will reduce the cost of batteries massively, right now. The cost of hydrogen fuel cells remains high, despite decades of research into the matter. Affordable electric vehicles are viable NOW. Hydrogen? Not.