Compressed air car The principal disadvantages are the steps of energy conversion and transmission, because each inherently has loss. For combustion engine cars, the energy is lost when chemical energy in fossil fuels is converted by the engine to mechanical energy. For electric cars, a power plant's electricity (from whatever source) is transmitted to the car's batteries, which then transmits the electricity to the car's motor, which converts it to mechanical energy. For compressed-air cars, the power plant's electricity is transmitted to a compressor, which mechanically compresses the air into the car's tank. The car's engine then converts the compressed air to mechanical
Potential energy of solar matter per second into electromagnetic energy, which is radiated into space. Potential energy is closely linked with forces. If the work done by a force on a body that moves from "A" to "B" does not depend on the path between these points, then the work of this force measured from "A" assigns a scalar value to every other point in space and defines a scalar potential field. In this case, the force can be defined as the negative of the vector gradient of the potential field. For example, gravity is a conservative force. The associated potential is