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
Energy ignoring all chemical, electrical, nuclear, and gravitational forces, effects such as advection of any form of energy other than heat and pV-work. The general formulation of the first law (i.e., conservation of energy) is valid even in situations in which the system is not homogeneous. For these cases the change in internal energy of a "closed" system is expressed in a general form by where formula_23 is the heat supplied to the system and formula_24 is the work applied to the system. The energy of a mechanical harmonic oscillator (a mass on a spring) is alternatively kinetic and potential. At