[Gregte]

Just wondering if the belt driven water pump is ever replaced with an electric water pump?

It would seem that the only time the water pump needs to actually pump coolant would be when the engine's thermostat opens. This happens only periodically and not real frequently in cooler weather. The belt driven pump is doing work all the time whereas an electric pump would only need to do work when needed.

Or maybe the belt driven pump is doing very little work when the t-stat is not open and thus no coolant is flowing.