Electric cars were popular around the turn of the century and a little later mostly because early internal combustion engine cars were such a pain to drive. They had all sorts of variations on clutches, advance and mixture controls one had to contend with, whereas the old electrics drove pretty much like a golf cart with one pedal that made you go faster and another (or a lever) that made you slow down. Not to mention the whole hassle of crank-starting.
But as the ICE got better, it ended up with a clear edge in power, range and payload capacity and eventually electric cars went away. These are pretty much the same reasons why electric cars haven’t been adopted today. Very recently battery technology is getting a little better, but overall there haven’t really been that many advances in electric technology since then. I remember reading somewhere that Jay Leno was pointing out that the GM EV1 built in the 1990’s only had an extra 10 mph top speed and an extra 40 or 50 miles of range over his 100-year old Baker.