Vehicle control apparatus

A vehicle control apparatus comprising a processor configured to:

• receive external world information inclusive of information on an indicative object that is ahead of a driver's vehicle in a running direction, accelerating operation information on an accelerating operation of the driver's vehicle, vehicle speed information on a vehicle speed of the driver's vehicle and ahead-located vehicle information on an ahead-located vehicle that is an object for the driver's vehicle to follow up, the ahead-located vehicle information being inclusive of information on a vehicle speed of the ahead-located vehicle;
• determine the ahead-located vehicle to be the object to follow up from the external world information that is received;
• perform running control of the driver's vehicle inclusive of follow-up running control after the ahead-located vehicle within a speed range from a stop to a predetermined vehicle speed;
• and
• perform a driving assistance operation using one of plural driving assistance states for assisting in driving the driver's vehicle,
• wherein the plural driving assistance states include a first assistance state that requires an operation of a predetermined driving operation element for keeping a predetermined driving assistance function enabled and a second assistance state that does not require the operation of the predetermined driving operation element for keeping the predetermined driving assistance function enabled,
• wherein the second assistance state requires no operation of a driving operation element and thus needs less driver requested tasks than the first assistance state,
• wherein any of a stop state, a start-stand-by state, and a running state is set as an operation state of the driver's vehicle in each of the first and second assistance states, the start-stand-by state being a state in which, though an accelerating operation that is larger than a predetermined threshold acceleration is performed, there is an obstacle for starting the driver's vehicle and the driver's vehicle is thus in the stop state,
• wherein when the processor is performing the follow-up running control with the driving assistance state of the driver's vehicle being the second assistance state and with the operation state of the driver's vehicle being the stop state,
• if the processor receives the accelerating operation information indicating that an accelerating operation larger than a predetermined first threshold acceleration is performed and the ahead-located vehicle information indicating that there is the ahead-located vehicle, then the processor has the operation state of the driver's vehicle transition from the stop state to the start-stand-by state with the driving assistance state of the driver's vehicle kept at the second assistance state,
• if the processor receives the accelerating operation information indicating that an accelerating operation larger than a predetermined second threshold acceleration is performed over a longer time than a predetermined first threshold duration and the ahead-located vehicle information indicating that there is the ahead-located vehicle, then the processor has the driving assistance state of the driver's vehicle transition from the second assistance state to the first assistance state and has the operation state of the driver's vehicle in the first assistance state transition from the stop state to the start-stand-by state, and
• if the processor receives the accelerating operation information indicating that an accelerating operation larger than a predetermined third threshold acceleration is performed over a longer time than a predetermined second threshold duration and the ahead-located vehicle information indicating that there is no ahead-located vehicle, then the processor has the driving assistance state of the driver's vehicle transition from the second assistance state to the first assistance state, with a request for operation of the driving operation element as the driver requested task, and has the operation state of the driver's vehicle in the first assistance state transition from the stop state to the running state, the predetermined second threshold acceleration being greater than or equal to the predetermined first threshold acceleration, the predetermined third threshold acceleration being greater than or equal to the predetermined second threshold acceleration, and the predetermined second threshold duration being greater than or equal to the predetermined first threshold duration.