Yes. Electric vehicles couldn't compete with internal combustion at the turn of the 20th century.
But the entire world has changed since then.
At the turn of the 20th century electricity in the home was a luxury for wealthy people, and for those in a very few major cities. The grid as we know it today, a century and a quarter later, did not exist. The first rudimentary interconnects would not exist for another 2 decades. The fundamentals for the continent spanning grid we know today would not exist until the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1934, and the Rural Electrification Program of the New Deal.
Prior to the creation of the grid, if someone wanted electricity in their house then they would have to build their own generating station, or they would have to be fortunate enough to live in one of the few areas served by local electric companies.
In that context, of _course_ internal combustion took over the market.
Add to this the problem that, at the turn of the 20th century, the state of the art battery technology was nickel-iron, which is problematic at best for electric vehicles. Of _course_ electric vehicles failed in that market.
I understand this may be a difficult concept for ICE fans to grasp, but the entire world has changed in the past century and a quarter. The pieces have only come together in the past few years for electric vehicles to take over the market.
When internal combustion vehicles became widely affordable in the early 20th century, in 20 years they almost completely displaced horses from transportation. We are now only about a decade into the market context for electric vehicles to displace internal combustion. Electric vehicles will continue to improve. In another two decades electric power will displace almost all internal combustion from the market, with the exception of a very few specialty applications.
