General Motors has filed for trademarks for “Bolt EUV,” which could point to the name of its first electric crossover—one that’s due to be announced sometime in 2020.
The name Bolt EUV was trademarked in relation to “motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles,” in three countries earlier this month. Paperwork was submitted with intellectual property (IP) overseers of the United States and Canada on April 9, and Mexico’s IP office on April 11. Below is the documentation for its US application.
Possible Chevrolet Electric Crossover Name
, United States Patent and Trademark Office via The DriveAmongst GM’s stable of products, the Bolt half of this trademark would refer to the Chevrolet Bolt, a subcompact electric hatchback that The Drive‘s Kyle Cheromcha found mostly favorable. As for “EUV,” it’s almost certainly an acronym for “electric utility vehicle.” Thus, a Bolt-based electric crossover.
GM has explained previously that its trademark filings are not inherently indicative of plans to launch models, and that securing the rights to vehicle names is often a matter of IP protection. We think there could be something more to this filing than simple rights protection, because GM promised in late 2017 that it would have “two entries by 2020” into the battery-electric crossover market.
In addition to the admittedly circumstantial evidence that is a trademark filing and previously confirmed company plans, alleged GM insiders reported in March that the automaker is preparing a new, Bolt-based small EV. Said model was reportedly slated for production in China, but will instead be built in Michigan at GM’s Orion Township plant.
If you’re eager to see what a Bolt on stilts might look like, GM released a rendering of a conceptual electric CUV alongside its declaration that two electric crossovers were on the way. It isn’t inherently representative of what the as-of-yet hypothetical Bolt EUV could look like, but we can’t imagine it’d be far off from the seemingly inevitable E-CUV.