Daimler and Tesla have been working together in a limited capacity for some time now, but the two made their relationship official in a pretty big way earlier today, with Daimler announcing that it has bought a 10% stake in Tesla, and that it'll be lending a hand with both parts and engineering. Of course, as with most things Tesla, there's no firm price tag attached to the deal, although it's said to be in the "double digit millions." They're a bit more specific when it comes to the working relationship, however, which will apparently include Tesla "leveraging Daimler's engineering, production and supply chain expertise" in ways that'll "accelerate" bringing the Model S to production. Tesla will also reportedly work on battery pack integration and battery management systems for Daimler from here on out, and the two will continue to collaborate on Daimler's second-generation Smart ED electric vehicle that's slated to go into production later this year. Interestingly, as AutoBlog points out, the deal also gives Tesla access to the automotive lithium-ion cells being produced by Daimler subsidiary Li-Tec which, when we're talking about electric vehicles, is no small thing.

We've already gotten a good look at the Dodge Circuit EV courtesy of the good folks at AutoblogGreen, but they've now come through yet again with a video that shows the Tesla competitor in action (or moving, at least). While it's expectedly still very much in prototype form, our fearless test driver nonetheless seems to have been fairly impressed by the car, with it delivering some speedy acceleration and an apparently generally pleasing ride. As noted earlier, however, the car is a tad cramped, and the real visibility leaves quite a bit to be desired, although Chrysler says that should be remedied somewhat by some smaller batteries in the eventual production version. Head on past the break for the video.

Developing a charger for a plug-in electric vehicle is hardly anything new, but the folks at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (or PNNL, for those in the know) have some considerably grander plans for their new Smart Charger Controller, which they say could one day serve as a standard charger for all sorts of electric vehicles. The key bit, it seems, is that each controller would be wirelessly linked to the local electric utility, which would feed the controller power prices and other information in order to let it charge during non-peak hours -- saving owners about $150 a year in energy costs as a result. It would apparently even be able to sense "stress conditions" and shut down before the grid gets overloaded. Of course, all of this depends on both the automakers and electric utilities getting on board, which could be quite a tall order, especially with another standardized EV plug seemingly already on the fast track.