A vehicle control method for automatically controlling travel of a host vehicle, the vehicle control method comprising: acquiring traffic jam information from an outside of the host vehicle, the traffic jam information indicating whether or not a travel lane of the host vehicle is jammed; when it is determined based on the traffic jam information that the travel lane is not jammed, performing basic self-driving control including intervehicle maintaining control configured to maintain an intervehicle distance (Dv) between the host vehicle and a preceding vehicle at a predetermined target intervehicle distance (Dv_t); when it is determined based on the traffic jam information that the travel lane is jammed, performing in-traffic-jam self-driving control, the in-traffic-jam self-driving control including selecting one of the intervehicle maintaining control or low torque travel control configured to cause the host vehicle to travel by a low drive torque lower than a drive torque determined based on the basic self-driving control; characterized by the in-traffic-jam self-driving control further including: performing the low torque travel control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance becomes equal to or less than a predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2), the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2) being set larger than the predetermined target intervehicle distance, and performing the intervehicle maintaining control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance (Dv) exceeds the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2). acquiring traffic jam information from an outside of the host vehicle, the traffic jam information indicating whether or not a travel lane of the host vehicle is jammed; when it is determined based on the traffic jam information that the travel lane is not jammed, performing basic self-driving control including intervehicle maintaining control configured to maintain an intervehicle distance (Dv) between the host vehicle and a preceding vehicle at a predetermined target intervehicle distance (Dv_t); when it is determined based on the traffic jam information that the travel lane is jammed, performing in-traffic-jam self-driving control, the in-traffic-jam self-driving control including selecting one of the intervehicle maintaining control or low torque travel control configured to cause the host vehicle to travel by a low drive torque lower than a drive torque determined based on the basic self-driving control; characterized by the in-traffic-jam self-driving control further including: performing the low torque travel control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance becomes equal to or less than a predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2), the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2) being set larger than the predetermined target intervehicle distance, and performing the intervehicle maintaining control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance (Dv) exceeds the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2). performing the low torque travel control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance becomes equal to or less than a predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2), the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2) being set larger than the predetermined target intervehicle distance, and performing the intervehicle maintaining control when it is determined that the intervehicle distance (Dv) exceeds the predetermined upper limit distance (Dv_2).