VEHICLE CONTROL APPARATUS

摘要

Disclosed is a vehicle control apparatus that uses the torque generated by the internal combustion engine to control the operating state of a vehicle in order to suppress poor fuel consumption due to retarded ignition timing in the internal combustion engine. A vehicle control apparatus comprises a drive train controller that performs comprehensive control of the drive train of the vehicle and an engine controller that controls the internal combustion engine based on the torque requested by the drive train controller. The engine controller regulates the intake air volume based on the requested torque and regulates the ignition timing to correct the difference between the requested torque and the torque that is attainable by regulating the intake air volume. The drive train controller calculates the desired torque to be output by the internal combustion engine in order to achieve a targeted vehicle operating state based on the amount of depression of the accelerator pedal by the driver and/or on signals from a variety of sensors with which the vehicle is equipped. The drive train controller then limits the rate of change in the desired torque with a specified guard value determined from the torque regulation capacity of the internal combustion engine, and outputs the limited desired torque to the engine controller as the requested torque. The aforementioned guard value is set using the range of the rate of change in torque attainable by regulating the intake air volume in the internal combustion engine as a reference value.