Hybrids use Lithium batteries too. But the ones for all electric vehicles are by necessity of higher capacity and higher energy density. Thus, more likely to turn into a bomb.
Compressed or liquified NG is a proven technology for internal combustion engines. The modifications are minimal and may even allow for easy switchover at need.
Of course NG can be, and is, used in electricity generation too.
But that is not the point. The Socialists hate the automobile, it gives the lumpen proliteriate too much independence and freedom. So they'll soon discover that burning natural gas creates CO2, which it does, and we can forget about it.
Meanwhile the electric grid is strained to the breaking point. Even Texas almost went to rolling blackouts last summer, although they THINK they'll be OK this year. So what does Crazy Eddie do? Push electric cars. (For Crazy Eddie reference see the Mote In God's Eye, by Pournelle and Niven)
"When a city has grown so overlarge and crowded that it is in immediate danger of collapse ... when food and clean water flow into the city at a rate just sufficient to feed every mouth, and every hand must work constantly to keep it that way ... when all transportation is involved in moving vital supplies, and none is left over to move people out of the city should the need arise ... then it is that Crazy Eddie leads the movers of garbage out on strike for better working conditions."
"It was not part of his nature to wish for what could not be, but he hoped that the efforts to breed a more stable Mediator would succeed; it was difficult to work with creatures who might suddenly see an unreal universe and make judgements based on it. The pattern was always the same. First they wished for the impossible. Then they worked toward it, still knowing it to be impossible. Finally they acted as if the impossible could be achieved, and let that unreality influence every act."
Barack Hussein Obama is Crazy Eddie.
I have a R/C plane with a lithium battery that I augered into the ground rather spectacularly. It hit hard enough to cause an internal short in the 1/3 cigarette pack sized battery. The resulting fire was impressive. Flames blowing out the side and acrid smoke.
I have not been to an electric car fire yet but I am somewhat apprehensive at the thought.