actually electric vehicles predate ICE but this guy named rockafeller who owned a really big oil company, and had a lot of this really volatile byproduct from his kerosene production he was looking for a use for...
In 1909, there were thousands of Baker Electric cars cruising the streets of NYC quietly and at 35mph. You didn’t need to go much faster inside the city. 100 miles to a charge, good old fully recyclable glass lead acid batteries.
Gasoline vehicles eventually outcompeted them by reaching 60mph and having more range (sound familiar?) but the parent isn’t wrong about Rockefeller, cheap and abundant fuel came 2 years later:
> …growing electrification of lighting produced a drop in kerosene demand, creating a supply problem. It appeared that the burgeoning oil industry would be trapped into over-producing kerosene and under-producing gasoline since simple distillation could not alter the ratio of the two products from any given crude. The solution appeared in 1911 when the development of the Burton process allowed thermal cracking of crude oils, which increased the percent yield of gasoline from the heavier hydrocarbons.