Is Jaguar planning an electric sports car? We can hope

Carmakers do their best to keep future-model plans a secret, but the sprawling bureaucracy of today’s corporate operations can sometimes make that difficult.

A part of that work involves protecting intellectual property for potential new models and technologies that may not even be confirmed for production.

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The fact that Jaguar recently trademarked the name “EV-Type” brings up some interesting possibilities.

The registration was filed with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on October 30 — and also with a similar registry in Europe — for use on “motor land vehicles” and other applications, Motor Authority reports.

Jaguar hasn’t confirmed any plans for an electric car, but the use of the “-Type” designation indicates that it’s at least considering a plug-in sports car.

While Jaguar used to offer the S-Type and X-Type sedans (as well as an X-Type wagon, briefly), that style of name is currently used only by the F-Type two-seat sports car.

The name EV-Type is also a somewhat playful reference to the car that inspired the F-Type, the classic E-Type.

Much of Jaguar’s recent history with hybrid and plug-in electric powertrains has also involved performance vehicles.

The C-X16 concept — which previewed the production F-Type — featured a hybrid powertrain consisting of a 3.0-liter supercharged V-6 and eight-speed automatic transmission, paired with an electric motor and lithium-ion battery pack.

More audaciously, Jaguar also tinkered with the C-X75, a mid-engined supercar that first appeared at the 2010 Paris Motor Show with a plug-in powertrain that included a pair of gas-turbine engines.

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Those were replaced by a 1.6-liter gasoline engine in an ultimately-failed attempt to make the C-X75 production-feasible. It was fun while it lasted.

It’s unclear whether the EV-Type has any connection to those previous experiments, or if Jaguar has any serious plans for the name at all at the moment.

Yet with global emissions standards getting stricter, Jaguar may have to take a more serious look at electrification in the near future.

When it does, at least it’ll have a clever name on hand.

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This story originally appeared on Green Car Reports. Copyright 2014