It's been over 15 years since Chevrolet discontinued the production of the unremarkable but high-value Cavalier compact car in North America. Succeeded by the Cobalt and later the Cruze in the USA, the Cavalier nameplate lives on in other regions such as Mexico. Other than the Malibu, Chevy doesn't sell any other small sedan or coupe like the Cavalier in this country, but could this be changing in the near future? A new trademark filing suggests that it's possible. Discovered by CarBuzz and filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the trademark is for the Cavalier name and has been trademarked in isolation as well as alongside the Chevrolet name.

Classified under "motor land vehicles, namely, automobiles," Chevy may be plotting a new model or simply securing the rights to the name even if it has no current intention of using it. After all, bringing out a new vehicle with a nameplate that will be immediately nostalgic and familiar to thousands of Americans is a commonly used tactic.

The Chevy Blazer is a perfect example of this. Back in 1969, the first K5 Blazer was launched as a truck-based SUV. Today, the Blazer is an entirely different midsize crossover, and the stylish Blazer EV - topped by a 557-horsepower SS variant - is an electric crossover that shares nothing but its name with the original K5.

Based on current trends, we don't expect the Cavalier to return as a small sedan or coupe. Those vehicles simply don't sell in large numbers anymore, so a more likely model is another electric crossover. Chevy already has the Equinox EV and Blazer EV on the way, so perhaps the next Cavalier could be a smaller EV to replace the Bolt EUV when it gets killed off in the near future.

What is certain is that if GM wants to meet its goals of selling 400,000 EVs in the USA by the end of next year and surpassing Tesla by the middle of the decade, it needs more affordable models from Chevy. Other brands within GM's portfolio can focus on lower-volume aspirational products, such as Cadillac with the $300,000 Celestiq.

When it was last on sale here, the Chevy Cavalier started at below $15,000. Yes, buyers had to contend with a cheap interior, but GM still sold almost 200,000 of them in 2004, shortly before it went out of production. A sub-$15,000 EV now sounds like a dream due to soaring battery costs, but if Chevy could come up with an all-new product to replace the Bolt at around $25k, it could open up EV ownership to far more people. Coupled with the controversial new tax credit for which the current Bolt qualifies, and it'll be even cheaper. Watch this space to see if an all-new Cavalier re-emerges anytime soon.