I would first like to preface this post with the following: * drool *

With that out of the way, the announced electric sedan from Tesla, the Model S, has been officially debuted. It made an unofficial appearance hours before it was scheduled to be shown as Digg co-founder Kevin Rose was somehow given access to leaked images of the vehicle. Rose announced his acquisition of the photos via Twitter and posted them to his private Flickr account.

Tesla chief executive Elon Musk was on hand during the unveiling of the Model S with details on the company’s newest electric gem, stating that the first vehicles would be delivered to buyers in the third quarter of 2011. Further, the Model S will be constructed in an undisclosed location somewhere in Southern California.

Musk announced that the Model S will be available in three different power configurations, “160-mile, 230-mile and 300-mile battery packs.” The pricing for the higher end configurations were not disclosed, but the base model of the vehicle equipped with the 160-mile battery pack (read: the cheapest possible configuration available for this beast) runs for $57,400, so surely common sense will give some idea as to the level of bank-breakery that will be taking place here.