Hydrogen fueling stations have not been standardized yet though there is a push to do so in order that hydrogen cars may start to rollout commercially within the next 5 years. On the California Fuel Cell Partnership (CaFCP) website there are a couple of pages outlining what the current hydrogen fueling stations look like and how they work.
Some of the hydrogen fueling stations in California are prototypes used as demonstration models and thus not open to the public. However, there are also some hydrogen pumps such as the one in downtown Los Angeles at a Shell station that sells retail hydrogen to the public.
CaFCP lists three different types of hydrogen fueling stations including those that create their own hydrogen onsite, those that have hydrogen delivered in liquid form and those that deliver hydrogen as a gas. There is also a fourth type of station which is a mobile hydrogen refueler which can easily be moved from one location to the next.
In regard to those stations that create the hydrogen onsite there are also a couple of types. The first type uses electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, then captures and compresses the hydrogen for use in cars.
The second type uses natural gas and reforms this into hydrogen which can be used to refuel cars as well as heat the home. Check out this link and this link from the CaFCP for more details.
The problem I have is this, it is too soon to define what a hydrogen refueling station will be because Plasma Kinetics is trying right now to prove that there is a good alternative to dispensing hydrogen gas at high pressures. One way to overcome a chicken and egg problem in terms of hydrogen fueling stations is to design fuel cell cars in such a way that refueling is cheap and can be done practically anywhere. Plasma Kinetics, barring some disastrous revelation about their laser metal hydride technology, has a revolutionary approach to fueling. Imagine a system similar to propane exchange where you swap out spent hydride disks for charged ones at your local Wal Mart, etcetera. Furthermore, low pressure hydrogen microwaved onto disks suggests that home based refueling may be practical.
The $50k mark for hydrogen fuel cell cars is the first practical price that has
ever come out and Toyota isn’t the only source for that price. Still, if between $10k to $25k could be shaved off of that price tag, more people could afford
fuel cell vehicles. There is going to be a competition between fuel cell vehicles and hybrids if fuel cell vehicles cost more than hybrids.
I believe once demand hits a critical point that fuel cell vehicles will be
cheaper than or as expensive as hybrids. I think the barriers to bringing
the cost down are rapidly falling.