While cars are nice in dense 19th century cities. Not strictly needed when you had street cars and walkable neighborhoods. And delivery services. They are more useful in rural America which was 60-70% of the population. And Rural houses didn't have electricity. No electricity no way to charge a car. Even city houses had very limited service, 10-20 amp was common.
No power semiconductors which meant inefficient motors and chargers.
Lead acid batteries have a quarter the energy density and output power that modern lithium ion batteries do. Which meant range sucked. And horsepower sucked.
Neglecting that power plants can run at temperatures small car engines can't, getting better carnot efficiencies, or using non-combustion methods of generating electricity.