It is very, very silly to think there are any paid shills here.
In other words, not everyone writing things that you do not like is paid for it. In fact it is very unlikely if we are speaking about this forum.
Firstly you have to remember that this TMC forums are a rich source of information, the level of knowledge of the people here is second-to-none. This thread in particular has often been used as the source of news stories. So it would make perfect sense to plant some contrarian comments here in order to FUD generate headlines.
In a case of a very regular and fixed routes, where hydrogen refilling facilities could be built, wouldn't EV charging facility also be possible? for cheaper cost and less permitting issues?
The physics 1st principle advantage of hydrogen is lower weight for same energy, and faster refilling time.
The lower weight advantage only shows up when you have very long distance driving. As Tesla has already reached 500 mi, FC vehicles will need to go at 1000 mi to differentiate based on this advantage.
Faster refilling time reduces idle time. Again idle time only comes into play when round the clock operation is needed, otherwise one can always recharge/refill when the vehicle is off-duty.
I think town buses don't seem to fit either of these criteria.
Of course I agree with you on the physic aspects, but I do think the quick turn-around time would be useful. If you consider in small city I live in, Brussels, 1 million inhabitants, we have, I would guess 50 different bus routes (we have a Metro and tram system too). Looking at the real-time maps right now I see some route have 9 buses running, some 5, some, others just one (they are short routes), others 5. Let's assume 250 buses in total.
Now what's the average fuel consumption - quick scout around the Internet would imply around 2km/L for inner-city and I would estimate that each route is averaging 15kms and takes 45 minutes to complete (based on my experience of using). So that would imply in a day 6:00-00:00, 18 hours, with 15 minutes rest, it's 18x15x2=540L of diesel - I assume the bus has a huge tank and can hold this capacity without the need to return to depot. Maybe they can't go all day without fuel, maybe they cycle one out of the route and add one in every hour, I don't know.
But then, what capacity battery would be required to complete a day's work? I'm guessing it would be the same as the semi, which we don't know, but extrapolating from the consumption/km I think it's going to need around 700kWh. Now imagine the infrastructure needed to charge 250 buses in 6 hours, all in parallel. That's quite immense, not only from installing such super/mega-chargers, but on energy-drain. OK, would be distributed around several depots, but it's going to be challenging.
Given the above, I think FCH would be more practical. Not for general public use though, that's a no-go, totally.
Sorry for the long post, so early in the morning...