> A lot of Tesla fans claim that electric vehicles are inherently superior, because with fewer moving parts, they'll be able to stay on the road basically forever - no piston rings to wear, no transmissions to fail, no oil to change.
There are at least two major components that "wear out" in power electronics - capacitors and power transistors. Traditional vacuum-impregnated motor winding insulation also has a wear-out mechanism.
Electrolytic capacitors have both an electrolyte breakdown and dryout at extended temperatures and voltage. Film capacitors also have a (much slower) dielectric breakdown. Power transistors have two wear-out mechanisms: one that is based on thermal cycling of the wire bonds and one that is based on thermal cycling of the solder between the transistor and direct-copper-bonded substrate.
Datacenter-scale UPS addresses both of these with field-replaceable modules. The main AC and DC capacitor banks are replaceable in advance of failure, and power transistors are field replaceable in much larger power modules, typically only after a failure.
Vacuum-impregnated motor winding insulation is typically not completely void-free. The high dV/dt that a direct-connected inverter imposes on the windings causes large repetitive voltage spikes across the winding insulation. The voltage spikes trigger partial discharge in the voids, which in turn erodes the insulation.
IMO, long-lived electric cars should at least have capacitor banks that are schedule-replaced, and drive modules that are replaceable after failure. With the level of diagnostics and history monitoring available today, we should be able to replace both components in advance of failure as well.
Do electric cars have lower maintenance, longer life, and higher reliability than ICE cars? Definitely, probably, and probably, respectively. But "lower", "longer", and "higher" don't mean "zero", "forever", and "infinite".