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Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards were implemented in the United States following the 1973 Energy Crisis. It's generally agreed that they helped lead to the replacement of the large American car with light truck derived vehicles which faced lower fuel economy standards. However, did it play a role anywhere else? How much improvement would manufacturers have done on their own? Did it essentially act as a cap on practical performance, seeing as domestic and imported American cars eventually reached parity in fuel economy (graph from Wikipedia)?

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