If electrical really is that efficient and maintenance free and cost effective, albeit a heavy investment, they should be employed in buses and taxis first. And long after that, in consumer cars that sit in the parking lot modt of the time.
The oldest generation of electric trams is going to make their last turns soon. See here for more information: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Vienna
Most cities, and whole countries!, already have this! And they had this for a long time. It is just mostly overlooked by "car people" because these are driving on rails or streets with rails, instead of plain steets.
Maybe it is also overlooked because it is named "train", "metro" or "tram" instead of "bus". But a tram is really just like bus: It drives a predefined route multiple time per hour (or per day, or per week). You just need better streets for it (namely: streets with rails). But that's, again, mostly a one-time investment. It means building the energy infrastructure directly into the street.
Rails do have some disadvantages, and not all countries have a good rails infrastructure, especially not within their cities.
But: The one huge advantage is the energy supply - no huge batteries and no charging times. This is why this technology is so old and has alredy worked perfectly decades ago, before modern battery technologies were developed.
Wikipedia just has an unsourced "Electric motors typically last longer than internal combustion motors, and cause less secondary damage from vibration, so electric buses tend to be very long-lived as compared to motorbuses"
King County Metro Transit Hybrid Articulated Buses: Interim Evaluation Results[1] (2006) page #24 (PDF page 35/58) shows a table of several individual buses of different types, with mileage, parts cost, and labor hours, summed into cost-per-mile. Diesel had an average cost per mile of $0.48/mile. Hybrid buses kept at one bus base had a cost per mile of $0.47, while Hybrid buses stored at another base had a cost per mile of $0.46.
I'm unsure about the national averages - they seem to be twice the Seattle rate. And KC Metro's electric buses are estimated to have less than half of the maintenance costs of other buses. And the national average for hybrid is higher than diesel, while KC Metro's hybrid buses have slightly lower maintenance costs than their diesel. Unfortunately, I couldn't find numbers on KC Metro's electric trolleys or CNG buses.
By comparison, the 2016 IRS rate for Business Mileage is $0.54/mile. [2]
Operator Type Average Maintenance Costs Per Mile ($)
KC Metro Electric 0.20 (2016) (estimated)
National Diesel 0.90 (2016)
KC Metro Diesel 0.48 (2006)
National Hybrid 1.10 (2016)
KC Metro Hybrid 0.47 (2006)
National CNG 1.00 (2016)
IRS Mileage Rate 0.54 (2016) (car)
[1] http://insideevs.com/proterra-catalyst-electric-bus-complete...