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It was a big love fest in Las Vegas yesterday (when isn't it) as Chrysler Group's North American dealers gave Dieter Zetsche an official send off. Dieter confirmed what we all knew, that the next fortwo would meet all safety and emissions standards for the US market. The only real question now is will they take the plunge and market the car in the US? The biggest hold up is undoubtedly the exchange rate. As of today, November 18, 2005, the Dollar/Euro exchange is about $1.17. Although closer to a 1:1 ratio than this summer, the Euro is still a bit pricey. It's my belief that the fortwo will be sold here. It would be very difficult for DaimlerChrysler to say that they gave it all they could without trying to crack the lucrative US market. In yesterday's article I said that DC would announce their decision by April of 2006. In Dieter's speech in Las Vegas he said that a decision would be made in the next six months, so that comes out about right. In an interesting side note from Dieter's speech he said that Chrysler would like to sell a car smaller than the Neon but bigger than the fortwo, but that Chrysler would have to partner with someone to make the plan financially feasible. Of course the easiest route for Chrysler would be to drunk dial former partner Mitsubishi, but it remains to be seen who Chrysler has in mind for this mission. All in all a good sign for small car fans in the USA. Things are about to get very interesting. [Update: It looks like Dieter might have drunk dialed his former right hand man Wolfgang Bernhard rather than Mitsubishi. A link over at Jalopnik pointed to this article at Edmunds that says the cooperation on the small b class car might be with Volkswagen using the Polo platform. Well this is all highly speculative but it is true that Chrysler will be manufacturing a minivan for VW, so why not take the partnership a step further?]