The Future of Cars: Cobra Starship Test Drive the Tesla Roadster

The Band: Cobra Starship
The Car: Tesla Roadster
The Location: New York City

"I'm gonna take the first shift, if that's all right," Cobra Starship guitarist Ryland Blackinton says, strolling around to the driver's side of a tiny black roadster parked on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan. "Gabe needs a little more time to sober up."

Gabe would be Gabe Saporta, Cobra Starship's founder and lead singer, and a man who is hiding a serious hangover behind his oversized Ray-Ban Wafarers. He was out until 5am and didn't make it to his bed until after 6. It's now 2pm but he's still shaking off the cobwebs.

Blackinton squeezes himself into the Tesla, the world's first all-electric sports car and one of the first electric cars to make it onto American roads, period. It is a small car, based on the Lotus Elise body and designed to be as light and nimble as possible. Blackinton is 6'5", and Saporta is 6'4". "We're a very tall band," he says, "But not the tallest. I think the tallest band in the world is Ladysmith Black Mambazo." He is serious. "I looked it up."

For a man who rarely drives, Blackinton pilots the car ably through Manhattan traffic, which is especially snarled thanks to the presence of the world's leaders, in town for the UN General Assembly. He doesn't own a car, and hasn't for years, but does come with experience: "My first job in New York was a driving job," says the transplanted Floridian. "I was a production assistant on The Bachelorette, driving this 15-person van. As people got eliminated I'd drive them to the airport. It was a really, really shitty job."

Tesla's Roadster is an attention magnet, and every time the car stops, someone wants to know how far it can go on a charge (240 miles, if you drive it very conservatively) or how long it takes to recharge (3.5 hours) or how much it costs ($110,000).

NEXT: Cobra Starship take
the Tesla Roadster to Queens