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The phase-plane analysis technique has become a powerful tool for analyzing lateral stability of single-unit vehicles. Articulated vehicles, such as car-trailer combinations, consist of multiple vehicle units. Multi-unit vehicles exhibit unique dynamic features compared against single-unit vehicles. For example, a car-trailer may exhibit one of the three unstable motion modes, i.e., jack-knifing, trailer sway and rollover. Considering the distinguished configurations and dynamic features of articulated vehicles, it is questionable whether the phase-plane analysis method based on single-unit vehicles is applicable for analyzing the lateral stability of multi-unit vehicles. In order to address the problem, case studies are conducted to test the effectiveness of the phase-plane method for analyzing the lateral stability of a car-trailer combination, which is represented by a nonlinear vehicle model generated using the CarSim software package.