There's fairly complex compute that happens in the battery cooling, motor cooling power train etc in a Tesla that gives it the acceleration and range to compete with ICE cars. The early 1900s electric cars that were more akin to what you describe never had the range, power or acceleration to compete.

If we're lucky we'll see plug and play standardization for things like batteries, charging components and engines where the chassis and ux parts of the car can be all different but everyone can essentially have a corolla or civic to fit their price point.

I should also add that i mostly just want a car, i don't need it to drive for me, I think the telsa's could be very very simple if they dropped all the self driving stuff. I know they won't but it would be cool to buy a crate telsa engine and battery pack for a rolling chassis without the infotainment system.

Realistically it does have to have a computer, but not necessarily a visible one. Power motor control is tricky - it requires monitoring the phase angle between the drive currents and the motor position, as well as things like overcurrent protection and the ability to switch to regenerative braking. Oh and you'll want traction control in there because the torque is highest at zero RPM, unlike petrol motors.

Even electric scooter size motors will have smart controllers. They're a big market for microcontrollers, e.g. TI: http://www.ti.com/solution/dc-input-bldc-motor-drive

It has to have a computer, the way your ICE car has a computer, or maybe the way your washing machine or a microwave has a computer (they all do).

It should serve the driver, and be low-profile and unobtrusive.

Does my washer really have a computer? Electric control board, certainly, but the timers are all mechanical. What is there to compute?

It's a hell of a lot cheaper to throw in a micro-controller than use mechanical timers etc. At bulk, an MCU based control board should cost you single digit dollars.