The U.S. auto industry is back, and how.
DETROIT, MI - The U.S. auto industry is back. New car and truck sales are at record levels. The Detroit Three are profitable.
As disgruntled Detroit teachers shut down 88 schools and a water crisis raged in Flint, Pres. Barack Obama landed in Detroit and touted the turn-around of the domestic auto industry and the Motor City in general.
It's a bright spot on a city and state that have been especially clouded as of late.
"Because the auto industry came back, that also gave the capacity for Detroit to start coming back," Obama said Wednesday afternoon at the UAW-GM Center for Human Resources in Detroit. "Folks aren't writing off Detroit anymore."
The president had just toured the North American International Auto Show at the Cobo Center, where he called Chrysler Pacifica "cool" and also complemented the Chevrolet Bolt EV.
Though he joked that he was in Motown to shop for a car, he said he was really here to celebrate what's been accomplished by Detroiters.
"There's only one Motor City," he said. "There's only one Detroit."
The president touted job growth that has happened since the economic crisis of 2008-09,
"This has been the longest period of job creation in our history, in our history," he said.
That's despite the fact that, as the end of the last decade neared, the American auto industry was "shedding jobs by the hundreds of thousands," with both General Motors and Chrysler on the brink of bankruptcy.
The failure of the two automakers could have cost another 1 million jobs, the Obama said, and at least one 2008 study puts that figure closer to 3 million.
Instead, the auto industry has added more than 646,000 jobs across manufacturing and retail since mid-2009. That's the strongest growth on record, according to the Obama administration.
And alongside that industry growth, unemployment in Detroit has been cut in half and is now at its lowest level since 2003, the president said.
Meanwhile, auto sales hit a record level of 17.4 million new vehicles sold last year. At the same time, domestic production more than doubled from fewer than 6 million units per year at the height of the crisis to about 12 million last year.
Related: Can President Obama stake claim to the Detroit Three's comeback?
And while industry analysts note that green car technology has not taken off as quickly as the president had hoped, the White House still noted that 115,000 electric vehicles were sold last year, more than double the amount in 2012.
In 2012 the administration laid out new fuel efficiency standards, and the White House said the industry remains on track to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2025.
The White House has also said the auto industry has avoided 60 million metric tons of carbon pollution in its first third of a 14-year program.
Still, however ambitious the Obama administration remains for cutting vehicles' carbon emissions, Americans tastes however have not been for small and green cars.
Within last year's record sales that total, sales of passenger cars actually declined 2 percent to 7,740,912 units. Total sales were wholly driven by light trucks, which grew 13 percent to 9,729,587 units
But the White House also noted in a handout ahead of the president's visit that many SUVs are now getting fuel efficiency close to - or even exceeding - 30 miles per gallon.
The air in American metropolises are also expected to get cleaner with the advent of automated vehicle technology and shared mobility.
The president is embracing a future with more autonomous cars on the road. Last Thursday in Detroit, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx announced a $3.9 billion investment in the adoption and acceleration of automated vehicle technology.
The 10-year proposal will move the technology ahead through real-world pilot projects, the U.S. Department of Transportation said.
"We got to think of the future, not just the past," Obama said. "And that's what you're doing here in Detroit."
It was only six and half years ago that two of the Detroit Three automakers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. It was part of a planned bailout and restructuring, begun in the last days of George W. Bush's presidency, that included $82 billion in U.S. and Canadian taxpayers' money to keep General Motors and what was then Chrysler Group afloat.
A majority of the American public was against the so-called auto industry bailout at the time. A recent polls shows most Americans now think it was a good idea.
For the UAW crowd gathered Wednesday, it was a great idea. To frequent applause, Obama called the UAW the "first union to realize we're all in this together."
He said that while he values private enterprize, he also said there needs to be a level playing field for all Americans.
"After years of corporate profits, we also have to make sure business is sharing what it makes with the workers who make it."
David Muller is the automotive and business reporter for MLive Media Group in Detroit. Email him at dmuller@mlive.com, follow him on Twitter or find him on Facebook.