Off the Grid: My Ride from Louisiana to the Panama Canal in an Electric Car

The rollicking tale of a first-of-its-kind adventure—driving a Tesla through Central America.

Only a week after the nation’s newspapers were filled with headlines of the first cross-country trip in an electric car, two Louisianans slip quietly across the Rio Grande in south Texas in an attempt to do the unthinkable—drive a factory electric car across seven Third World countries to the “end of the road,” Panama City, Panama.

Without support and armed only with a toolbox, a bag of electrical adapters, and their wits, author Randy Denmon and his friend Dean trudge on through jungles, deserts, volcanoes, rivers, and crater-sized potholes, all the while trying to avoid the drug cartels and corrupt border guards that could mean a quick end to their adventure . . . and their lives. Through it all, the same enormous problem loomed daily: how to charge the car in such a primitive and desolate setting?

Despite the numerous setbacks, Randy never lost his sense of humor. Off the Grid is as much a spiritual journey as a physical one about two guys who dropped everything for one grand twenty-first-century adventure—traveling back in time in a car that seemed to come from the future.

Randy Denmon is a writer and engineer. His novels have been reviewed in numerous papers and magazines and have won the Western Writers of America Spur Award and the Faulkner-Wisdom Award. A lifelong Louisiana resident, he currently resides in Monroe, Louisiana.

Jim Motavalli is the author of two books on electric cars, Forward Drive and High Voltage; cofounder of FuelCellCars.com; and blogger for Car Talk at National Public Radio.