The flexible little Toyota Me.We concept.

“I, me, my,” sang the Beatles – for the younger generation, that’s the group Paul McCartney was in before Wings.  Meanwhile, Toyota is responding with its Me.We concept, a show car it describes as “anti-crisis,” and intended to “address contemporary human, economic and environmental challenges.”

The Me.We Concept was developed as part of a collaboration with French designer Jean-Marie Massaud and unveiled at the Le Rendez-vous Toyota event in Paris.

For the owner – the Me – the concept is designed to be flexible, convenient and extremely customizable, with removable body panels that can transform the micro-hatchback into a pickup, convertible, even an off-roader.

For the We, the little concept is designed to be environmentally friendly, with most of the vehicle being recyclable.  That includes the polypropylene body panels and the renewable bamboo floor.

Change a few panels, stretch the cargo bay and, voila, the French-designed Toyota Me.We becomes a pickup.

There’s also a fully-electric drivetrain that is mounted under the load floor. The Toyota Me.We concept adopts an intriguing approach by utilizing four individual in-wheel motors that enhance off-road capabilities while also permitting torque vectoring to improve cornering capabilities.

The lightweight aluminum chassis helps offset the mass of the concept’s lithium-ion batteries, total weight coming in at just 1,650 pounds.

“With none of the traditional packaging restraints associated with conventional powertrains,” notes Toyota, “the entire interior could be devoted to the vehicle’s occupants and luggage.”

If there’s still not enough room, luggage can be carried on the roof , protected by a fold-out neoprene cover. And the rear bench seat can quickly be removed when not in use, and folded up under the front seats. The rear luggage space can then be extended into a pickup-like platform.

As for instrumentation, there’s a single LCD screen above the steering wheel that displays speed, battery charge and other information – including navigation instructions.  The actual navi system is an app on a paired smartphone.

The Toyota Me.We interior uses recyclable materials like bamboo, and uses smartphone apps for navigation and other functions.

The phone itself has a special mount below the screen, and other apps can help personalize other cabin features and even control such basic functions as climate control.

Japanese makers have traditionally been fond of rolling out will – and often wacky – concepts like the Toyota Me.We. But that doesn’t mean the new show car isn’t worth a closer look.  A number of the features are already starting to show up in production – the new Chevrolet Sonic and Spark models, for example, rely on smartphone navigation apps that can be displayed on their dashboard monitors.

And supplier Protean Electric just showed off the latest in in-wheel electric motors during a news conference at the Shanghai Motor Show.

Meanwhile, renewable materials, such as bamboo, are finding their way into a number of new vehicles while most makers have targeted weight reduction as a critical goal as they face down tough new emissions and mileage mandates.

Will we see Toyota put the Me.We into production? Probably not, but it could be a harbinger of things to come.