by Cody Drabble
Page Burner bumped into West Sacramento Mayor Christopher Cabaldon on 20th Street near the MARRS building. He was sporting a beautiful Racing Green Tesla Roadster.
SN&R: I can’t believe I caught the mayor, that is so cool!
And you caught my new car. I’ve only had it for a week and a half.
It is a beautiful car.
When the electric vehicle stuff started to happen, of course I’d get one but I have to get a sports car. But they didn’t make that, so I was off the hook, don’t have to get an electric car. Then they made this, and I was like, that’s $110,000, that’s not what I meant.
So you’ve only had it for a week and a half?
A week and a half.
How far does it go on a charge?
It’s rated to go 250 miles. But that’s if you’re going like, 25 miles per hour.
If you go faster, is it less efficient?
Yeah. And especially once you’re going faster than 50, it’s going to decline pretty quick. I think that I could get to the Bay Area and back. Not to LA on one charge.
If you drove it to LA, where between here and LA would you charge it?
I would charge at Harris Ranch. Tesla has installed a supercharging station there. My car, because it’s an older 2008 model, can’t use that. But some other [Tesla] Roadster owner five years ago installed a high speed charger.
How fast does it charge?
That one [the high speed charger] would take four to five hours to fully charge. But if I can get 190 miles or so on one charge, I wouldn’t need to fully charge to get the rest of the way. So, it’s just a very long lunch at Harris Ranch.
So you’d just get a steak and bring a book to chill out at Harris Ranch?
Yeah, exactly. In theory, but I don’t drive to LA that much.
If you drove to LA, would you take the Tesla or something else?
It depends. If it was more like my high school reunion, yeah I’d take this. But not usually.
Can I take a photo of you in your Tesla?
Oh my god, that’s too much. This car is crazy looking!
But it looks fantastic…
There’s nothing in between a Prius and this. There’s no [Nissan] 350Z electric sports car.
So why did you decide to go for a Tesla?
Because it’s still the only sports car one [electric vehicle]. I’ve been saying to myself and everybody else, if they only had one… When the new Tesla’s came out, the used Tesla’s came down in price.
Which model is this?
This is the Roadster. Once the new models came out, Tesla started to buy the [used ones] back, so it’s still expensive but it was a lot less than it used to be. This is a 2008, but it was a service vehicle so it has hardly any miles on it. It’s a lotus body, but it’s a little crazy. I mean, I was just [in Peet’s on 20th at J Street] getting coffee and now there’s people taking pictures and kids all over it. It’s kinda fun.
Anything else the readers of SN&R ought to know, Mr. Mayor?
I’ve told you nothing interesting at all. I don’t have any breaking news that I haven’t already tweeted. When I first came out, I decided that would be my strategy. In 2006, I had already been in office for a while, I was like you know what that wasn’t so bad.
The reaction wasn’t too negative?
It had its ups and downs, but I survived it and one of the lessons I learned from it was just be a real person all the time, talk about my business all the time, then it’s not scandalous. If I shoot somebody, it doesn’t matter if I tell you in advance.
But you have good judgment, right? You’re not going to go do what Anthony Weiner does.
No, no, no. I’m not all that repressed.
