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Comment by Pamela Hirschhorn on April 27, 2015 at 8:17am

Electrics had over 30% of the market in 1900, steam was a major factor, too. Upon a little clicking, I came across this interesting paragraph on www.earlyelectric.com a site dedicated to early electric cars. 

Edison Although he left the driving to an employee, or his wife Mina, or his son Charles, Edison owned a lot of electric cars. Starting with an 1897 Columbia Mk III, he then bought the second Baker made (1899), a circa 1907 Studebaker, a Woods, a 1909 Bailey, a 1910 Waverley, in 1911 the Edison Storage Battery Co. got an all blue Detroit Electric Victoria, the family got a very fancy 1911 Rauch & Lang outside drive Brougham, and a 1914 model 47 Detroit Electric Brougham. As usual he thought he could do a better job of it, so he built an electric locomotive for Menlo Park (it ran about 1,500 feet to a fishing hole), announced the production of a "new" light delivery truck in 1910 (Lansden), and contributed to the design of the two Ford electric car prototypes in 1914.

Edison thought what was needed was not a better car but a better battery. He put much of his time and personal fortune into developing an alkaline secondary battery. It was (eventually) good enough to recover his investment (with the help of a Navy contract in 1915), but not cheap enough or efficient enough to save the battery automobile.

Thanks for your thought provoking articles, Alert.