Only reason why electric cars existed back then is because gas engine had to be hand-cranked before electric starter was invented in 1911. People hated doing it because it was dangerous and dirty. Especially women.
As soon as electric starter became a thing, electric cars were dead. Their usage continued only with delivery vans for some time as gas engines were still unreliable and for delivery fleets, dispatch reliability was very important.
Properly dangerous in case people dont realize this. This wasnt people being squeamish.
>In the winter of 1908, a woman stalled her Cadillac in Belle Island, Michigan, and didn't have the strength to crank the car over. So she sat there. Another driver by the name of Byron Carter happened along and offered to start the stalled Cadillac. Carter was the founder of CarterCar, which was acquired by GM in 1909, largely due to the company's development work with friction transmissions. Carter was also a friend of Cadillac founder Henry Leland.
>When Carter turned the stalled Cadillac's crank, the engine reportedly backfired, the crank hit him in the face and broke his jaw. Tragically, gangrene set in, and, medicine being what it was at the turn of the last century, Carter died later that year.
Even for delivery vehicles the petrol engine was way better. One anecdote from some documentary that stuck with me is:
Delivery vehicles (post/milkman) had to do the uphill people first as the batteries did not have enough power to get the car up the hill at the end of a day.
Well, it was before gender equity and women certainly didn't want to look unlady-like having to crank up their cars in the street. Also, as another commenter said, backfiring engine could traumatise a person holding a crank. Horror stories like death from a broken jaw were an extreme rarity, but broken fingers were pretty much normal, and could ruin young woman's marriage prospects given how badly disfigured could fingers become given medical tech of the time.
As soon as electric starter became a thing, electric cars were dead. Their usage continued only with delivery vans for some time as gas engines were still unreliable and for delivery fleets, dispatch reliability was very important.