Well, apparently there’s something fancy going on or something in Washington today, which makes it seem like a perfect time for me to tell you the exciting and related news that the Italian automaker Fiat has agreed to take a 35% stake in Chrysler, the Detroit auto company. Chrysler, like the other American car companies, has been having extreme financial difficulties, and was even dumped by the German company Daimler about a year and a half ago and bought by an independent group. From the New York Times:

Chrysler, which last month received a $4 billion loan from the federal government to help it avoid bankruptcy, said the partnership would be a “key element” of the viability plan that it must submit by March 31 and that Fiat would help develop the plan.

The part of this news I found most interesting (and relevant to this website) is that Chrysler is going to use this acquisition to make greener cars. As we often hear, this is being done for economic reasons, because going green saves money.

The agreement will allow Chrysler to use Fiat’s technology and vehicle platforms to build more fuel-efficient, small and midsize cars at its factories and sell them in North America.

In this economy, as well, we can imagine that the people buying cars are going to go smaller. Okay, Obama’s about to walk out on the platform, and NBC is babbling about silly things, so I’m gonna end this post and watch history unfold. But, yeah, cars. takepart with AutoblogGreen to learn about other green car news.