There is a recent U.S. tv ad that claims to have Daimler Chrysler chairman Dieter Zetsche in it. Is this for real? It looks like him. But he seems to be doing a really good acting job. Also a little odd, he speaks perfect English, almost without an accent (and I thought Zetsche was from Germany). Is this really Dieter Zetsche?
Thank you in advance to all who reply 
Hey, the man’s a born star. He’s even got his own website
Short answer: Yeah it’s him and yeah he speaks pretty good english
So why does his voice sound dubbed?
Never struck me as sounding dubbed. I’ll have to listen more carefully.
What makes you think a dubbed voice implies that it’s not him? Half the TV shows and movies made have portions that are dubbed for various reasons. In this case, the obvious car noise would make it necessary. The only implication I’d draw is that perhaps the dubbing skills of the commercial production company aren’t up to big-time studio standards or that Dr. Z’s ability to dub himself convincingly shows his amateur acting chops.
Yes he does. He was in Daytona a couple weeks ago for the introduction of the Challenger and the Pepsi 400 and Fox interviewed him. Excellent English.
A surprising number of European businessmen speak English fluently. A surprising number of Europeans speak English passably. We, that is Americans, are probably surprised only because so few of us have any competence in a second language – the official language bozos serve only to enhance that provincialism / parochialism. The only thing truly remarkable about Dr. Zetsche’s English is that he lacks the usual British BBC news reader accent.
You know, in my relatively limited experience, I’ve never come across a German that didn’t speak English almost perfectly. I’m pretty sure it’s required learning in their equivilent of grade school.
FWIW a recent Spiegel Online aricle (German language) notes his “heavy German accent” - it seems we Germans are more critical in that regard 
Yes, that’s remarkable to me too - only, that’s not an accent to Germans but what we learn as English at school - this applies still more for Mr. Zetsches generation than for today’s students.
The title pages of books translated into German usually make the following distinction:
Translated from English by … vs
Tanslated from American by …
Dieter’s no slouch. Ghosn gets all the attention because he saved Nissan, but Dieter did more at Chrysler. Nissan had a good product, but wasn’t able to capture much attention with it. Chrysler didn’t. Dieter changed all that and managed to outsell Ford and GM, which is something that Chrysler never had done before. Thanks to Dieter, Chrysler now has some of the lowest costs in the industry. One of the ways that he did it was ditching the executive dining room and taking his lunch with the rank and file employees. His reason for doing so (and both management and the employees thought it was a bad idea at first) was that if there was a problem which wasn’t getting solved, an employee could walk up to him at lunch and discuss it with him. Dieter’s also very familiar with the component costs for Chryslers, which is more than I can say for most of the CEOs at the companies I’ve worked at.
It’s not the accent or matching the sounds (which is pretty good); it’s the sound level, which makes it sound like the old Firesign Theater “coming soon to <YOUR AREA>” voiceover. It’s, at best, extremely amateurish – not on the dubber’s part, but on the technician’s.
I’ve never noticed anything “off” about his voice in those spots.
I will say he’s very secure with himself and has a good sense of humor to do these spots. (Would you want to do an ad that ends with a child trying to pull your mustache off?)
He also has a healthy dose of charisma - he doesn’t come across as the typical wooden Megacorp CEO.
This is very true. You are required in Germany to study two foreign languages, English is one of the most common choices. All my German friends and relatives speak almost perfect English. If only my German anywhere near as good.
Even my paternal grandparents who moved here during the late 30’s spoke both English and French, in addition to their native German.