That's not really true. The OP claimed that the maintenance costs are lower. "Specialized pieces of electronics and power distribution kit" are not involved i

That's not really true. The OP claimed that the maintenance costs are lower. "Specialized pieces of electronics and power distribution kit" are not involved in maintenance, those are repair parts you're talking about. Maintenance and repair are two different things: one is something you do proactively because some parts are designed for limited life and must be replaced periodically to keep the system in good running condition, whereas the other is something you do when something unforeseen breaks down. A spark plug is a maintenance item; a spark plug coil is somewhere in the middle but closer to a repair part (they do fail, but not often and usually after a very long time, they usually last the life of the car), whereas an ECU is absolutely a repair part because it should never need replacement. "Specialized pieces of electronics" also should not fail for the life of the vehicle. Why this is important is that a car can easily have very low maintenance costs, but very high repair costs. European luxury cars (sold in the US) are a good example of this: they're very reliable these days and shouldn't be hard or expensive to service (filters don't cost that much, oil is standard), but repair costs for a BMW or Mercedes are outrageous by most accounts because factory parts are very expensive for those brands, whereas similar parts for a more pedestrian American or Japanese brand are usually much cheaper.