77Transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors – legal...
Ivan BRYHADYR
Kharkiv National University of Internal Aairs, Kharkiv
Ukraine
ORCID: 0000-0003-3181-3410
kaf_tryd@ukr.net
Iryna PANOVA
Kharkiv National University of Internal Aairs, Kharkiv
Ukraine
ORCID: 0000-0003-4325-5428
kafpdp@ukr.net
Volodymyr STRELIANYI
Kharkiv National University of Internal Aairs, Kharkiv
Ukraine
ORCID: 0000-0002-4608-3062
kafpdp@ukr.net
TRANSITION FROM INTERNAL COMBUSTION ENGINES
TO ELECTRIC MOTORS – LEGAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL
DIMENSIONS
PRZEJŚCIE Z SILNIKÓW SPALINOWYCH NA SILNIKI
ELEKTRYCZNE – WYMIAR PRAWNY I ORGANIZACYJNY
Abstract: The authors of the paper have studied the current tendencies in motor transport, thre-
ats to the ecological safety of people from the introduction of new technologies in this area and
the main legal mechanisms to reduce the negative impacts on humans caused by vehicles. The
main environmental problems in this area are: accumulation of used batteries from battery-po-
wered vehicles as hazardous waste and the problem of their unied disposal; redistribution of
emissions from transport operations, but not their reduction; focusing on only one technology
– battery-powered electric vehicles; energy costs of transport and sources of their coverage.
The authors oer the basis of legal mechanisms for overcoming the studied problems both in
Ukraine and in the countries of the world.
Zarys treści: Autorzy artykułu zbadali aktualne tendencje w transporcie samochodowym, za-
grożenia dla bezpieczeństwa ekologicznego ludzi wynikające z wprowadzania nowych tech-
nologii w tym zakresie oraz główne mechanizmy prawne ograniczania negatywnych oddzia-
ływań pojazdów na ludzi. Główne problemy środowiskowe w tym obszarze to: gromadzenie
77
77gl;;
Nr 6 ss. 77–85 2021
ISSN 2543–7321 Przyjęto: 05.04.2022
© Instytut Bezpieczeństwa i Zarządzania, Akademia Pomorska w Słupsku Zaakceptowano: 05.04.2022
Oryginalna praca badawcza DOI: 10.34858/SNB.6.2021.006
STUDIA NAD BEZPIECZEŃSTWEM
78 Ivan Bryhadyr, Iryna Panova, Volodymyr Strelianyi
zużytych akumulatorów z pojazdów zasilanych bateryjnie jako odpady niebezpieczne oraz
problem ich jednolitej utylizacji; redystrybucja emisji z operacji transportowych, ale nie ich
redukcja; skupienie się tylko na jednej technologii – pojazdach elektrycznych zasilanych bate-
riami; koszty energii transportu i źródła ich pokrycia. Autorzy przedstawiają podstawy prawne
mechanizmów przezwyciężania badanych problemów zarówno na Ukrainie, jak i w krajach
świata.
Key words: battery vehicles, motor transport, ecological safety, environmental protection, eco-
logical legislation
Słowa kluczowe: pojazdy akumulatorowe, transport samochodowy, bezpieczeństwo ekolo-
giczne, ochrona środowiska, przepisy ekologiczne
Society and countries began to pay more attention to sustainable development in
the second half of the 20th century – a concept based on the principles of preserving
the environment by the current generation in a state that makes it possible for future
generations to use natural resources of no less quality. To realize this, various pro-
gramme and legal documents were adopted at the international level, in each area or
sphere of public life – socio-demographic, industrial, environmental, etc.
Each country can develop its own programme and legal documents and is free
to use or not to use international recommendations while developing them, if such
a country has not previously undertaken the relevant international legal obligations in
a particular area.
The developed countries of the world are making more and more eorts for the
ecologization of material production, energy and transport. This is most noticeable
in the eld of motor transport because the vast majority of the population of these
countries own vehicles. Due to the high concentration of populations in cities and
the daily use of automotive transport, the air quality decreases and harmful acoustic
loads increase, etc. The unproductive loss of time increases due to trac jams, which
also aects fatigue levels and nal productivity, as well as forcing people to work in
hazardous conditions. Thus, according to road trac monitoring services, on average
the time spent in trac jams in Kyiv is 46%.1 This indicator ranges from 82% up
to 103% during the rush hours, when the largest movement of commuters occurs,
and can reach 130%.2 Most importantly, a signicant part of the working population
spends a certain amount of time in areas with the highest concentration of pollutants
– on highways. If a total of 40 minutes per working day, including scheduled stops,
over a total of 220 working days per year is spent commuting, a person is exposed to
these harmful conditions for 146 hours per year, which is the equivalent of 18 working
shifts. This is prompting governments to impose increasingly strict requirements for
vehicles.
Increasingly stringent conditions for the production and operation of vehicles
are pushing carmakers to make signicant investments in the development of more
1 Skolko vremeni kievlyane tratyat iż za probok, https://nashkiev.ua/novosti/skolko-vremeni-kiev-
lyane-tratyat-iz-za-probok.html?in_parent=novosti, [access: 08.12.2020] [in Russian].
2 Kyiv trac, https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trac-index/kiev-trac, [access: 08.12.2020,
2020].
79Transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors – legal...
advanced engines and equipment and, sometimes, outright fraud. This is conrmed by
the recent ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, with the installation of vehicle software which detec-
ted whether or not a vehicle was being tested and, if so, underestimated the vehicle’s
emissions. ‘Dieselgate’ has become a catalyst for a series of bans on diesel vehicles in
a number of European cities. However, the situation did not stop at the ban on diesel
vehicles in some cities. A number of countries have announced the complete trans-
ition of vehicles to electric power plants and the abandonment of internal combustion
engines. Thus, Norway plans to introduce a ban on internal combustion engines from
2025, Germany from 2030 and France from 2040.
The situation in Ukraine in this direction is mostly unchanged and diametrically
opposite to that in Europe. Thus, Ukraine has adopted programmes of gradual in-
troduction of environmental requirements for vehicles, which are known as ‘Euro-
4’, ‘Euro-5’ and ‘Euro-6’. Currently there is a requirement for the commissioning
of vehicles that meet the requirements of the ‘Euro-5’ programme; the plan was to
introduce the ‘Euro-6’ programme from January 1, 2020, but the introduction of these
standards has been postponed to 2025. Moreover, as a result of a series of protests
and the corresponding liberalization of customs legislation, it is possible to import
and register in Ukraine used cars that do not meet the requirements of the ‘Euro-
5’ programme as an exceptional, temporary measure. To stimulate the development
of electric vehicles markets Ukraine has introduced customs clearance benets, as
well as initiating an independent series of state license plates with green inscriptions.
Ukraine has not adopted the relevant standards with regard to the banning of internal
combustion engines.
It should be noted that Ukraine, as well as the rest of the world, in order to reduce
carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles, once stimulated and developed technologies
for the use of mixtures including raw materials derived from renewable products (of
animal or vegetable origin) as motor fuel, in particular bio-ethanol and biodiesel. The-
re were attempts to mandate the addition of a certain proportion of ethanol to petrol,
but that tendency has not been developed due to the small number of vehicles that
have been adapted to run on such fuels.
Therefore, we can currently state that the use of internal combustion engines for
individual transport is being gradually curtailed. Using motor fuel from renewable
sources solves only one problem – reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Other prob-
lems remain unresolved. In the process of fuel combustion under ideal conditions,
water and carbon dioxide should be formed, but in practice it is dierent. First of all,
the fuel always contains impurities which do not only form water and carbon dioxide
while being burned. All protein structures of living organisms contain sulphur and
nitrogen, which inevitably get into the fuel, although in small quantities. The com-
bustion of such impurities produces oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, which are part
of exhaust fumes and cause acid rain. Secondly, atmospheric nitrogen is oxidized at
high combustion temperatures in the engine and forms nitric oxide of dierent va-
lences. Most of these compounds are neutralized in vehicle systems, in particular in
catalytic converters. However, some of these compounds still enter the atmosphere.
80 Ivan Bryhadyr, Iryna Panova, Volodymyr Strelianyi
Considering the signicant concentration of vehicles in cities, even insignicant emis-
sions are multiplied by the large number of vehicles, which leads to a high concen-
tration of hazardous substances in small areas. Some cities, during windless weather,
are covered with clouds of smog which are dangerous for all city residents, not only
those who use transport.
In addition, the use of fuel containing products of animal or vegetable origin has
faced certain ethical problems. Land is used for growing crops suitable for the pro-
duction of bio-ethanol and biodiesel, i.e. part of the land is used for fuel production
and not for producing food. Certain crops, in particular maize, can be used both as
a food crop and as an energy crop for bio-ethanol production and this is happening
while the world has not overcome the problem of hunger in many countries. Hunger
is pushing people to migrate, which is further degrading the population in certain
places and creating new environmental and social problems, including in developed
countries. This ethical problem does not only aect the future of motor fuel made
from renewable sources.
It is necessary to start the gradual transition from internal combustion engines to
electric motors in the development of motor transport. In general, in supporting such
a transition, it is necessary to pay attention to certain problems that every country will
inevitably face on the path to electrication of motor transport.
The rst problem is the energy of transport. Electric vehicles consume energy for
movement and operation of onboard systems. The required amount of energy is taken
from the battery, which must be charged from the existing power supply system. Wit-
hout going into all the technical aspects of this issue, it should be noted that the use of
batteries as a source of energy in vehicles incurs the following types of energy loss on:
▪ Conversion of alternating current to direct current, the losses are not signicant
here – 2-5%, associated with the operation of transformers and electronics.
▪Conversion of direct current and energy of chemical bonds. This process is
accompanied by a signicant release of heat and accounts for much of the
energy consumed from the network. The amount of losses depends on the mo-
del and technology of the manufacturer. Experience in the use of electric vehic-
les indicates that the dierence between the metered electricity consumed from
the grid and that stored in the battery of the electric vehicle can be 15–30%
depending on climatic conditions and the degree of battery charge.
▪Losses from the reverse conversion of the energy of chemical bonds into electri-
city are dicult to track, but purely technically they exist and can not be denied
due to the very characteristics of the processes occurring in the battery.
These losses may increase over time due to battery degradation. In addition, such
losses must be taken into account within technical and economic grounding of the in-
troduction of electric vehicles in certain industries (emergency vehicles, public trans-
port, etc.).
The ability of the existing power supply network to accept loads from chargers
must be taken into account. It should be noted that there are certain advantages for
81Transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors – legal...
energy networks when citizens use them to charge electric vehicles. Charging usually
occurs at night when the load on the network is minimal and the amount of unpro-
ductive losses of the grid from downtime is increased. Electric vehicles can minimize
such uctuations, but this is true only for a nationwide power generation system.
However, private housing power supply systems, especially in Ukraine, were not de-
signed to charge electric vehicles. Therefore, the mass transition to electric vehicles
should be accompanied by the modernization of the energy network.
In addition to this there is the purely environmental problem of electricity gene-
ration. Most electricity in Ukraine is generated from fossil fuels or nuclear energy.
Therefore, to consider electric vehicles as vehicles with zero emissions (zero vehicles)
is quite presumptuous. Electric vehicles in Ukraine, as in most countries of the world,
redistribute the place of emissions and their type, partially reducing them. From the
point of view of protecting the health of the population and ensuring environmental
protection, individual electric transport is really a compromise between the need for
comfortable transport and emissions that aect humans. In terms of the overall emis-
sions balance of a country, or the world as a whole, electric vehicles do not signican-
tly reduce them. However, this is not so much a problem of electried transport but
rather the global energy sector as a whole. Indeed, the zero emissions from electric
vehicles can be discussed in the event of achieving a complete replacement of nuc-
lear energy or energy from fossil fuels by energy from renewable sources. There is
progress in this direction and the level of emissions associated with the operation of
electric vehicles is gradually decreasing.3
Legislatively, this problem is solved by introducing increasingly stringent energy
regulations in terms of environmental pollution and stimulating the development of
alternative energy sources. In this regard, a number of regulations and policy docu-
ments have been adopted and therefore it is impractical to pay detailed attention to
them in this study.
The next problem that arises in the introduction of electric vehicles is called the
emission balance during their manufacture. A study was conducted in Germany
comparing the manufacturing greenhouse gas emissions of a Mercedes C220d and
a Tesla Model 3. According to the results of the study, the extraction and processing
of lithium, cobalt and manganese required for the manufacture of batteries are very
energy-intensive. The production of one battery with a service life of 10 years leads
to the emission of 11–15 tons of CO2.4 This problem is related to the industry and the
ecologization of material production. The main legal mechanisms for inuencing the
solution to this problem lie in the area of environmental requirements for industrial
facilities. The production of electric vehicles or batteries for them is not currently
undertaken in Ukraine, but if this were to change, such facilities will be subject to
the general requirements for industrial facilities set out in environmental legislation.
3 Wie umweltfreundlich sind Elektroautos?, https://www.bmu.de/leadmin/Daten_BMU/Pools/
Broschueren/elektroautos_bf.pdf, [access: 08.12.2020].
4 Ch. Buchal, H.-D. Karl, H.-W. Sinn, Kohlemotoren, Windmotoren und Dieselmotoren: Was zeigt
die CO2 -Bilanz?, https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2019-08-sinn-karl-buchal-motoren-2019-04-25.
pdf, [access: 08.12.2020].
82 Ivan Bryhadyr, Iryna Panova, Volodymyr Strelianyi
We also did not nd any specic legal requirements for EU countries for the electric
vehicle manufacturing industry.
In our opinion the biggest existing problem of electric vehicles, which has not yet
become critical, is the batteries of vehicles. A number of environmentally harmful
chemical elements that require specic disposal are used in the production of batte-
ries. Informational material on the responsible disposal of used batteries from hou-
sehold appliances indicate that one ‘penlight battery’ of AAA type, weighing 45 gr.
pollutes 20 sq.m. of soil. If we mathematically scale up such a battery to that of an
electric vehicle battery weighing 240–300 kg, we get an area of pollution of more than
10 hectares.
At the end of 2019 there was a collective article published in the journal Nature
on ‘Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles’.5 The authors of the article
quite thoroughly raised the technological and environmental problems associated with
the future fate of used batteries. Without going into a detailed analysis of their work,
we would like to underline the main problems that were identied by the authors.
Market analysis and tendencies of the introduction of electric vehicles indicate the
unpreparedness for the environmental problem of the accumulation of used batteries.
One million electric vehicles generate 250,000 tons of hazardous waste in the form
of used batteries. The main problem for the disposal of such batteries is the dierent
approaches of the production technology and industrial design of the batteries them-
selves. The authors point to the variety of both the forms of batteries and the methods
of their production, which makes it dicult to automate the process of disassembly
of the battery for separate disposal of substances contained therein. This will require
workers to be involved in the disposal process and be exposed to the attendant hazar-
dous conditions.
The authors also draw attention to the impossibility of the burial of such waste.
The reason for this is the extremely high re hazard of such waste, including due to
the eect of ‘thermal acceleration’. The danger for Ukraine is even greater due to
the lack of a system for segregation of household waste. If such a battery is buried
together with household waste and subsequently spontaneously combusts, a single
landll will burn from one battery. The tragedy of the re in the Hrybovytska landll
near Lviv, which took the lives of several people and caused a problem for waste
disposal in the whole region, showed how dangerous res could be at such facilities.
Nobody has calculated the overall environmental consequences.
Disposal of such batteries in the long run is not advisable at all due to the exhau-
stion of chemical elements and the complexity and energy consumption of their extra-
ction. This is why systems should be developed to remove useful elements from used
batteries and reuse such resources.
As one of the options for a partial solution to the problem of used batteries, manu-
facturers oer to include them into existing energy storage systems from alternative
energy sources. Despite the expediency of such a step, it should be noted that this
5 G. Harper, R. Sommerville, E. Kendrick and others, Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric
vehicles, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5 [access: 08.12.2020].
83Transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors – legal...
only delays the problem and will eventually exacerbate it. Therefore, it is necessary
to agree with the need to develop a single industrial design of batteries. Restricting
and forcing manufacturers to use only one technology will undoubtedly lead to patent
complications and complicate (limit) the development of technologies. An example
of such an association of manufacturers around a single product design is the use of
a single standard for chargers for portable equipment. Everything is a bit more com-
plicated with electric vehicle batteries. Every manufacturer has their own device ar-
chitecture and structure and their own patents for the technology. All this complicates
the introduction of uniform standards for the manufacture and disposal of electric
vehicle batteries. The role of legislative acts of a programme nature in this context,
which set certain requirements for the future, is growing. Examples of such directives
are the establishment of the requirements for vehicles known as ‘Euro-2,-3,-4,-5,-6’
such as Regulation (EC) No. 715/2007, which established requirements for car emis-
sions at the level of ‘Euro-5’.
Currently, there are no legal requirements in any country in the world to bring the
design of batteries to a state and architecture suitable for automated and complete
disposal after the end of service life. All legal requirements for batteries of electric ve-
hicles both in Ukraine and in most countries of the world are based on their nature of
chemical power sources. In our country, it is the Law of Ukraine ‘On Chemical Power
Sources’, which does not establish dierences or special conditions for the disposal of
electric vehicle batteries compared to other chemical power sources.
In this regard, it is necessary to develop and set a date for the introduction of
a mandatory legal requirement to make the architecture of batteries suitable for auto-
mated and complete disposal, with a mandatory deadline for their introduction su-
cient to adapt the production. This must be done by the governments of the countries
where production of electric vehicles takes place or major car manufacturers are re-
gistered. Other countries should implement similar requirements in their legislation
to establish generally accepted rules for the operation of electric vehicles. This step
will provide additional incentives for technological development and competition
since, if there is a single platform and requirements for such batteries, the market for
electric vehicles will be available not only directly to car manufacturers but also to
other companies with their own products. Additionally, single battery architecture will
allow exchange of batteries at charging stations.
A number of regulatory requirements for the recycling of electric vehicle batteries
should be additionally developed in Ukraine. There is simply no industry for recycling
electric vehicle batteries at the moment. Practically all electric vehicles operated in
Ukraine are not imported by car manufacturers, but by the citizens who bought them.
Some car manufacturers only began ocial sales of electric vehicles in in Ukraine in
2020. This has led to car makers and dealers not addressing the need for disposal of
used batteries. In the current realities of Ukraine and the rather low environmental
consciousness of citizens, the creation of infrastructure for recycling electric vehicle
batteries seems a remote prospect.
84
It is necessary to introduce legal mechanisms that would require the creation of
structures and mechanisms for centralized collection and subsequent disposal of used
batteries. This will require the introduction of mechanisms for the registration of the
supply of batteries for electric vehicles. If an electric vehicle is imported, its owner
must be held responsible for the proper disposal of the battery. If it is necessary to
replace the battery or any of its components, suppliers must accept used batteries for
disposal or notify the environmental control authorities that there is no exchange of
battery taking place, which in turn should be a signal to check what happens to the
battery in the future. The absence of a spent battery in the possession of the owner
should be considered as environmental pollution and considered as improper dispo-
sal. There should be an additional nancial instrument to encourage proper disposal
– a disposal fee – an amount of money that corresponds to the cost of the batte-
ry, which is refunded to the owner when the battery is transferred to an appropriate
operator.
Another problem that has to be addressed is the limited perception of the electri-
cation process and the phasing out of internal combustion engines, which lies in
the false perception of electric vehicles exclusively as battery-powered vehicles. This
encourages the development of legal requirements based on this false perception and
does not stimulate the development of alternatives such as fuel cells, which consume
hydrogen to produce energy. There is no combustion process in fuel cells as the oxida-
tion of hydrogen occurs as a result of another process, which produces current without
electromagnetic generation and with water and heat as by-products. The eciency of
this process is up to 60%.
Hydrogen in fuel cells is an environmentally clean fuel due to the lack of com-
bustion, which means there is no oxidation of atmospheric nitrogen. An obstacle to
the widespread introduction of this technology is the lack of a developed system of
hydrogen production and sale. However, the same problem occurred with chargers for
electric cars a few years ago. Indeed, hydrogen production is a very energy-intensive
process. However, production facilities can be built where there is access to signi-
cant amounts of renewable energy – solar energy in the deserts of Africa, Asia and
Australia, geothermal sources, wind power on coasts, etc. Transporting such large
amounts of electricity through conventional networks is a rather complex engineering
task and it may be better to use energy at the site of its generation to produce hydrogen
and then transport the hydrogen. Moreover, the existing gas pipeline network can be
used for this purpose after the end of the hydrocarbon era, providing technical speci-
cations can be met.
The advantage of introducing fuel cells in vehicles is that the generation of energy
take place in the vehicle itself with the possibility of fast refuelling, just like cars with
internal combustion engines. Moreover, such vehicles have a virtually unlimited drive
range, which battery electric cars will never have without replacing the batteries on
the drive. An additional advantage of vehicles with fuel cells is the possibility of their
use as a mobile source of electricity generation, which can be useful for emergency
services, and signicantly expands the potential use of such vehicles.
Ivan Bryhadyr, Iryna Panova, Volodymyr Strelianyi
85Factors inuencing cross-border security
Analysis of the legislation of Ukraine does not demonstrate support for developing
vehicles which use fuel cells. All existing tax incentives are for ‘vehicles equipped
exclusively with electric engines’. Vehicles which use fuel cells are not on the classi-
cation list of goods for foreign economic activity.
Bibliography
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zeigt die CO2 -Bilanz?, https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/sd-2019-08-sinn-karl-buchal-moto-
ren-2019-04-25.pdf, [access: 08.12.2020].
Harper G., Sommerville R., Kendrick E. and others, Recycling lithium-ion batteries from elec-
tric vehicles, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1682-5 [access: 08.12.2020].
Kyiv trac, https://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trac-index/kiev-trac, [access: 08.12.2020].
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-kievlyane-tratyat-iz-za-probok.html?in_parent=novosti, [access: 08.12.2020] [in Rus-
sian].
Wie umweltfreundlich sind Elektroautos?, https://www.bmu.de/leadmin/Daten_BMU/Pools/
Broschueren/elektroautos_bf.pdf, [access: 07.12.2020].
Summary
The requirements of environmental legislation from the 1960–1970s is one of the main fac-
tors in the technological development of material production. The introduction of increasingly
stringent requirements for vehicles during the last 30 years has stimulated the development
of vehicle transport technologies and has led to a total change in the type of power plants for
cars. Currently it is insucient to introduce prohibitive requirements alone. We need a stra-
tegic environmental assessment of the impact of technology and its integration into transport
policy. Legislation should become the main programme factor in the development of vehicle
transport technologies, but at the same time everything necessary should be done to avoid the
transformation of one environmental problem into another, no less threatening one. Ukraine
can be neither a pioneer nor an outsider in this area. We need to get involved in the European
law-making processes and should implement the requirements adopted in the EU into our law.
Transition from internal combustion engines to electric motors – legal...
