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
Electric potential energy Electric potential energy Electric potential energy, or electrostatic potential energy, is a potential energy (measured in joules) that results from conservative Coulomb forces and is associated with the configuration of a particular set of point charges within a defined system. An "object" may have electric potential energy by virtue of two key elements: its own electric charge and its relative position to other electrically charged "objects". The term "electric potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with time-variant electric fields, while the term "electrostatic potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with