Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, the guy who invented the electrolytic capacitor, also patented the field-effect transistor in 1930. But he never made one, material science just wasn't there yet. (This is why the Nobel for "inventing the transistor" went to a completely different team who were using a different method 17 years later) Power electronics requires the whole suite of semiconductor technology: atomically pure silicon crystals, dopants, vacuum coating, lithography, etc. First VFD motor controller wasn't until 1982.
The technology wasn't even remotely ready yet in 1912. Remember, the GM EV1 of 1996, with VFD drive and NiMH batteries that didn't exist and couldn't exist in 1912, still only managed a hundred miles of range. Despite the conspiracy theories, the EV1 wasn't a very compelling car. It required better batteries and motors to get something like a Tesla a decade later.
