Steadily increasing emission standards for passenger cars and heavy duty vehicles combined with the need for fuel efficiency lead to novel powertrain concepts, for example to leanly operated gasoline direct injection engines, or to novel exhaust gas aftertreatment concepts such as Lean NO x Traps (LNT), ammonia selective catalytic reduction catalysts for NO x reduction (SCR), or even to a combination of both. Also, diesel particulate filters (DPF) are in series production.To control these novel exhaust gas aftertreatment systems and to monitor onboard the proper operation of these systems (on-board diagnosis, OBD), novel exhaust gas sensors are required or are at least be very helpful. Since the development of exhaust gas sensors has always to be seen in interaction with the corresponding exhaust gas aftertreatment systems, novel types of exhaust gas sensors have gained in importance just recently, when the time was ripe for novel exhaust gas aftertreatment concepts. This article reports on several types of NO x sensors and ammonia sensors.Additionally, a very recent novel concept is presented. Here, the catalyst itself works as a sensing device that gives directly information on its own status. The readout can be wirebound (demonstrated for LNT and SCR) or even be wireless by applying radio frequency techniques. It will be shown that this allows to detect the oxygen loading degree of three-way catalysts very precisely. It can be also applied to determine the ammonia loading of SCR catalysts and the soot loading of DPF.As a conclusion, these novel methods may provide a future alternative for low emission-aiming engine control as well as for OBD of low emission vehicles with novel exhaust gas aftertreatment systems. However, it is clear that all novel sensors or systems do not only have to meet the technical requirements but also have to be very inexpensive, reliable, and cost effective.R. Moos (*)