Honestly it's kind of amazing that there was a time when there were electric, steam, and petrol cars were about equally common in USA and it wasn't clear which would come to dominate the market. Steam cars ran on kerosene which was super common, while petroleum wasn't that easy to get. Their main disadvantage was that they were heavy. Electric cars were lighter but had batteries. But those technical reasons didn't determine the outcome (we wouldn't have these damn SUVs if heaviness was that important). Both the electric and the steam car were hand crafted so they were expensive, whereas the patrol car began to be mass produced I'm factories which drove the prices down. Mass adoption followed which meant that Ford could afford to invest in infrastructure (pumps, mechanics etc.), which further cemented its position. In other words it wasn't just the technical aspects of the cars (e.g. the energy density of the fuel) that mattered, economics and politics also played a vital role.