[ogre_codes]

A friend of mine runs a business servicing fork-lifts and similar vehicles. Mostly old propane or diesel powered fork lifts. When people ask him for recommendations about replacing a dead machine, he recommends they go electric due to reliability. It's a bit counter to his self-interests because they do require a fraction of the maintenance.

He also owns several electric golf-carts he's tunes up for speed and light 4WD.

[Gibbon1]

When the Prius came out I looked at the drive train and it seemed obvious that the transmission on those things should and appears to be very reliable. It's a planetary gear set and two electric motors.

Fixed gears and electric motors life spans are between 25,000 and 50,000 hours. Vs less than 10,000 hours for a piston engine.

Everything about cars is designed around that fact that the engine is shot after 200-250,000 miles. Would not surprise me if eventually the expected life of an EV will end up being 2 to 3 times longer.