Refuelling the early gas cars was a huge pain - you had to go buy a can of gas at the shop! And hope they had one!

There were apparently often street power points to charge electric cars outside major shops in the cities to compensate for the hilariously small range the first electrics had (30 miles is probably an over estimate!)

In other words, both kinds of car were "a bit shit" to start with. It's widely accepted that ironically it was the electric starter that won it for the combustion engine, but I imagine the development of filling stations helped too, Vs no real progress in battery technology for a century on the electric side.