To sell a vehicle in the US, the manufacturer must certify to the distributor that the vehicle meets federal safety and emissions standards. The NHTSA and EPA define the test procedures and acceptable results, but they don't actually test the vehicles themselves. The manufacturer is responsible for conducting the tests and certifying that their vehicles meet the standards. This testing is normally carried out at the manufacturer's own facilities, and I'm sure DaimlerChrysler has already done this, although they do not appear to have made any results public.
The NHTSA does conduct the NCAP (aka "Star Rating") crash test, which is a voluntary test intended to provide manufacturers with a "market incentive" to produce safer vehicles. This test is more stringent (i.e. 5 mph higher speed) than the federal standard test, but is not required in order to sell a car in the US (in fact there are many vehicle on sale here that have not been NCAP tested). Nor can a car "fail" the NCAP test, although a 1 or 2 star rating would clearly be a marketing disaster. I'm sure that DaimlerChrysler will want the smart to be NCAP tested (in anticipation of a good rating), but the timing of this is not a constraint on selling the car.
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