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The concept is good but I would not try it with compressed gas unless you use hydraulic fluid to compress the gas in an accumulator.
It's called hydraulic launch assist which captures enrgy lost in intentional deceleration and reapplies that energy to provide acceleration in the next cycle. The concept is at least a decade old, possibly much older.
In any FWD vehicle the rear axle would be the location of the launch assist system. Using it would be like stopping your car with the emergency brake, but you would be recovering energy for future acceleration. The system could be incorporated into the vehicle and integrated into the ABS braking system, so operation would be seamless. Only in relatively hard emergency type stops would the friction brakes be used.
I remember a member on Clean MPG forums who did the 5th wheel configuration on a first gen Insight, using the extra wheel to generate additional electrical energy for reapplication. Most gas-electric hybrids can not recuperate any more than one third of the energy in regeneration, while the hydraulic configurations developed 10 years ago were at 78%, using a bent axes pump that was spinning at prop shaft speeds which forced the pump to sping at 3.5 times the speed of the wheels. The solution was to move the drive pump to the wheels where rotational speeds seldom exceed 1000 RPM and pump efficiencies easily stay above 90%, compared to 75% at speeds above 3000 RPM.
regards
Mech
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