Beta vs VHS, anyone?
That was what was going through my mind. That, and Mac vs. PC.
Sometimes, there are other factors involved. Like marketing.
But I think the real constraint on the electric car was battery life and range.
And possibly the perceived danger of what would happen to the batteries during an accident.
I'd be curious where VHS is in a few years.
Everybody likes to say Beta was the better technology, but from a consumer perspective it actually wasn't. It had one major drawback from the consumer side: tape length. Beta's max length was inconveniently short, causing it to be not really useful for the commercial video market. Also the fact that Sony kept it closed where-as VHS was open to multiple manufacturers seriously crippled the market.