Reuters New vehicle demand from U.S. retail and commercial customers is outpacing expectations, two top Detroit auto executives said on Thursday.

Their positive comments underscored an upbeat report by the U.S. Commerce Department that showed U.S. retail sales unexpectedly rose in May as consumers bought more motor vehicles and a range of other goods.

If the consumer remains at this strength, we could significantly outperform what we said about fullyear performance, General Motors Chief Financial Office Paul Jacobson told a Deutsche Bank investor conference.

Ford Chief Financial Officer John Lawler, in a separate interview at the conference, said the consumer is hanging in there while noting continued strength and pricing power in the company39;s Ford Pro commercial business.

The comments from the two CFOs marked a shift from earlier in the year when many economists and some auto sector executives were bracing for a U.S. recession. Tesla CEO Elon Musk in January forecast a serious recession and subsequently began slashing prices on the electric car company39;s vehicles.

Since then, U.S. vehicle sales have stabilized and vehicle production has recovered to close to prepandemic levels as supply chain bottlenecks have eased.

Jacobson and Lawler said their companies will keep pushing costreduction programs that have already cut thousands of jobs from Ford and GM payrolls. The two companies are under pressure to fund the launch of new electric vehicles that in the…