Vehicle control apparatus

A vehicle control apparatus that is applicable to a vehicle including a monitoring sensor that monitors a front side of an own vehicle in a vehicle advancing direction and a brake apparatus that brakes the own vehicle, the vehicle control apparatus comprising:

• a vehicle determining unit that determines whether a pre-preceding vehicle is present in front of a preceding vehicle in the vehicle advancing direction, the preceding vehicle being positioned in front of the own vehicle in the vehicle advancing direction;
• a following control unit that, in response to the vehicle determining unit determining that the pre-preceding vehicle is present in front of the preceding vehicle in the vehicle advancing direction, compares a first required deceleration that is deceleration required to cause the own vehicle to travel so as to follow the preceding vehicle based on a monitoring result of the monitoring sensor monitoring the preceding vehicle and a second required deceleration that is deceleration required to cause the own vehicle to travel so as to follow the pre-preceding vehicle based on a monitoring result of the monitoring sensor monitoring the pre-preceding vehicle, and controls the brake apparatus to bring deceleration of the own vehicle closer to the second required deceleration in response to the second required deceleration being greater than the first required deceleration;
• an object determining unit that determines whether an object is detected in front of the preceding vehicle in the vehicle advancing direction;
• and
• an engine control unit that controls a traveling engine of the own vehicle, wherein
• the engine control unit generates engine braking by the traveling engine from when the object determining unit determines that the object is detected until the vehicle determining unit determines that the object is the pre-preceding vehicle, and
• in response to the object determining unit determining that the object is detected and the vehicle determining unit determining that the object is the pre-preceding vehicle, the following control unit controls the brake apparatus to bring the deceleration of the own vehicle closer to the second required deceleration.