Patent ID: 8229665

Claim:
A vehicle control apparatus comprising: an obstacle recognition system that detects an obstacle in the rear of an own vehicle and detects at least a distance from the own vehicle to the obstacle; a back control system that repeats execution of a back control processing, which, when the own vehicle is to back up, backs the own vehicle to a halt at a target stop position set on the side of the obstacle from the own vehicle, until the distance, detected by said obstacle recognition system, from the own vehicle to the obstacle becomes equal to a predetermined final target stop distance; and a target stop distance setting section that sets a target stop distance, which is a distance from said obstacle to said target stop position, the target stop distance setting section setting said target stop distance, which is longer than said predetermined final target stop distance, at a first execution of said back control processing, and shortening said target stop distance depending on an increase in the number of times of execution of said back control processing to cause the target stop distance to approach the predetermined final target stop distance.