With so much smoke billowing from Mazda’s headquarters in Japan, it’s hard to believe there is no fire. A series of documents filed in early August contained schematics of what could be (and let’s face it, what we hope will be) an RX-Vision-type sports coupe with an electrified front axle. Then came a report from Japan Best car that Mazda is working on a rotary hydrogen engine that would fit into some sort of RX-8 successor. Now we have learned, Going through CarBuzz, this Hatena’s Blog in Japan (translated) found eight Mazda brand applications, four possibly for vehicle trim names, four of which could be applied to electrified propulsion systems.

The transmission applications are a logo, shown above, and three names: e-SKYACTIV R-Energy, e-SKYACTIV R-HEV, e-SKYACTIV R-EV. Hatena figures the latest applications focus on the automaker’s XEV technology that we heard about last year that would use a small rotary engine in an extremely compact hybrid powertrain that could act as a mild hybrid, series hybrid, or extended-range electric vehicle. A Mazda patent application showed a potential AWD layout for the powertrain that was as complicated as it was new.

The logo is clearly the rotor of a Wankel rotary engine with an equally clear “e” cutout. We are starting from the idea here that correlation is causation, so we will assume that a rotational shaped logo filed with the new “R” nomenclature means that these terms mean some kind of Skyactiv electrified rotary motors. If Mazda sticks to the current electrified naming trend, we would take R-HEV for a hybrid electric vehicle – or it could be hydrogen – and R-EV for a battery electric vehicle. That leaves the name R-Energy as a mystery – we think it identifies another alternative fuel like this rotary hydrogen engine, or it could be an umbrella term for any non-traditional R car. Remember that Mazda also applied to marks a new R logo in July, the most popular assumption being that it could mean high performance rotary engine models.

We’ll put the usual branding disclaimer here: apps don’t necessarily mean anything to the real world, so logo and names might end up being placeholders that never escape. to a Japanese filing cabinet. But again, it’s a lot of activity in a single month that’s tangential to things we know Mazda is working on, like a new RWD sports car and rotary engines.

The other four trademark applications were for trim names Hatena the numbers will be applied to the JDM offerings: Field Journey and Sports Appearance for the CX-5, VS Terracotta Selection which mimics the VS White Selection already available for the Miata Roadster RF, and Pro-X Ross Style which is a puzzle.