GM Teases New 8.3-Liter Duramax 'Mongoose' Engine Just As Diesel Crosses $6.50 Per Gallon Nationwide

It'll be a cold day in hell before heavy-duty pickup-truck makers like GM, Ford and Stellantis stop trying to one-up each other on power and performance numbers. Sure, the price of diesel just hit a new all-time record high, but that didn't stop GM from releasing a teaser video of its brand-new Duramax motor, called the Mongoose.

In the short video posted to YouTube, The General announced its new turbocharged 8.3-liter (that's 507 freedom-loving cubic inches) Duramax diesel. We don't know exact power figures or towing capacities for the automaker's workhorse, but it'll almost certainly beat out the turbodiesel 6.6-liter V8 found in current heavy-duty GM trucks, which makes an already gnarly 470 horsepower and 975 pound-feet of torque. When properly equipped, it can tow up to 36,000 pounds, as well. That's almost enough to pull your mom out of bed.

Of course, this is all happening with the backdrop of cripplingly high fuel prices across the country. GM doesn't provide official fuel economy figures for its current Duramax since it's technically too heavy for anyone to actually bother, but folks with the diesel online say they average around 14-17 mpg when unladen. I wouldn't expect a truck with 1.7 more liters of displacement to do much better.

That's going to hurt in the long run, especially when you consider that the average price of a gallon of diesel across the U.S. just crossed $6.51, according to AAA. In California, that average price has hit $8.42, and even the cheapest state, Texas — land of the truck — costs $5.97 per gallon, on average. Don't expect those prices to come down in any meaningful way anytime soon, either.

Despite the fact we don't know much about the new Duramax other than its displacement, its name gives us a clear indication of its mission statement: beat Ford. Ya see, Ford calls the latest iteration of its turbodiesel 6.7-liter Power Stroke V8 the Scorpion, and in the teaser video, we can see a bow-tie-eyed mongoose attacking and, uh, killing a scorpion that appears to be walking in an oval.

So, we may not know official Mongoose stats just yet, but if I had to guess, it'll certainly outperform the 500 hp and 1,200 lb-ft of torque put out by the Power Stroke. It would be rather funny, and certainly embarrassing if it didn't. If it's going to outdo the Stroke's numbers, it'll also easily outdo the heavy-duty Ram Cummins turbodiesel inline-six motor's power figures. That unit makes do with only 430 hp and 1,075 lb-ft of torque.

Between the Stroke the Cumm' and the 'Max, it's a wild world out there for heavy-duty truck engines, and if no one cares about the cost at the pump, I don't think it's gonna slow down anytime soon.