[axiolite]

> Could someone explain to me why cars running on natural gas aren't popular in the US like they are in South America / Europe?

There are many fleets which use natural gas. Municipal buses, city garbage trucks, etc. There, they only need to build up one (private) CNG refueling station in the city.

With a passenger car, you need to plan your trip to find public CNG fueling stations along the route where you need them.

The boom in natural gas production is a recent occurrence. Go back a couple decades and natural gas was far more expensive. Back then, propane was the obvious alternative to gasoline for vehicles, until the price for propane spiked and natural gas fell.

But more importantly, CNG is only a half-step forward, still leaving us dependent on a single fossil fuel. Battery electric vehicles are far more practical thanks to being easy to (slow-)charge almost anywhere, getting us off of fossil fuels entirely, reducing mechanical complexity/maintenance, and being far more efficient (burning the same amount of natural gas in a power plant to charge your BEV will give you far more range than burning it in your converted car engine).