It is an observation and it fits the data very well. Automotive use of hydrogen has severe feasibility problems and no amount of research is likely to fix them. Not only does it require conversion of useful energy into it at a loss, but it’s transport, storage and use is extremely expensive. You are basically fighting physics to try to get a sane result. Meanwhile, we have a very promising results in battery electrics that far exceed the best case results from hydrogen, yet people want to continue pouring money into the money hole that is a hydrogen economy. Hydrogen’s best attribute in automotive applications is that it will go nowhere.

As for accomplishing nothing, if it put food on the table, it certainly did accomplish something, just not what was being promised to the people who funded it.