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The needs of the non-internal combustion engine for the automobile have been increasingly emphasized due to the seriousness of the air pollution in major cities and the global warming. However, such power plant technologies are generally considered to be still far away from the full commercialization as technical issues including infrastructure and cost are still remaining to be solved, so the substantial emission cleanup through the market penetration requires a long time for the realization. For the mean time, attempts are made to investigate the maximum potential of the internal combustion engine for reduction of both exhaust emissions and CO2 focusing on Honda''s near-zero emission Zero Level Emission Vehicle (ZLEV) technology.

Although air pollution has mitigated since the introduction of exhaust emission regulations, further reduction of it especially in the metropolitan areas is anticipated. An effective way to resolve this issue is to improve the catalyst performance. Of many approaches, improving substrate is one promising way to achieve this goal. Results of applying high cell density and light- weight substrates, coupled with high precious metal content, are discussed theoretically and verified experimentally here. The significant improvements made in the low temperature activity and warmed-up conversions by increasing geometrical surface areas and lowering thermal mass of high cell density substrates are described.