Are transmission failures really that common? In nearly fifty years of driving and owning eight different cars I've never had a transmission failure. One of the cars (Volvo Amazon estate car) did 350k miles including the previous owner rallying it for a couple of years. Apart from fixing a leaking radiator when I bought it I never had any problems with the motor or gearbox. We scrapped it just because my wife wanted a newer more comfortable car.
All that said, electric cars really shine in city driving. No transmission to go, and regenerative braking to save the pads. It’s valid to call it out if that’s your use case like these Amazon trucks.
And then sometimes things aren't built as designed. The ford HF35 hybrid transmission should be pretty reliable as designed, but many of them were built with bearings (or something) that went bad, leading to an early salvage date for many C-Maxes.
GM on the other hand went the exact opposite direction most of the time and put an overengineered heavy duty transmission with maybe slightly cheaper internals into their smaller vehicles.
Eh, the owners of 80's era Chevy Celebrities/Pontiac 6000s/Oldsmobile Cieras/Buick Centuries might like a word.
Clutches wear out, and it is possible to wear out an automatic transmissions' clutches, but I've never had it happen.
Every car I've sent to the junkyard has had a working transmission.
It's a different level of wear and tear than a normal commuter passenger vehicle.
I think the bigger savings on a delivery van would be brakes. In constant stop-start driving using the motor for regenerative braking is both an efficiency saver and reduces wear and tear on the mechanical brakes.
That 2002 model is supposed to be a lemon transmission-wise though (even so, 300k seems decent as far as lifespans go).
Transmissions are tough because they endure a lot of extreme forces. Shift points have the risk of slamming components together.