Patent ID: 8219280

Claim:
A vehicle information storage apparatus comprising: a status information acquiring unit configured to acquire a dataset of status information items of a vehicle; a controlling unit configured to acquire malfunction-cause-investigation information data to be used for investigating a cause of a malfunction based on the dataset of information items acquired by the status information acquiring unit, and to store the determined malfunction-cause-investigation information data in a prescribed storage medium; and a malfunction-cause-investigation information range determination table configured to specify a determination condition to determine an occurrence of a malfunction and a start recording time and a stop recording time of a recording range of the malfunction-cause-investigation information data which are before and after a time when the malfunction started based on the time when the malfunction started with respect to each type of malfunctions, wherein the controlling unit is configured to determine a time point when the malfunction started in the vehicle based on the dataset of status information items acquired by the status information acquiring unit and the determination condition to determine the occurrence of the malfunction specified by the malfunction-cause-investigation information range determination table, and further determine the malfunction-cause-investigation information data to be used for investigating the cause of the malfunction from among the dataset of status information items acquired by the status information acquiring unit based on the specified time point when the malfunction started and the start recording time and the stop recording time of the recording range of the malfunction-cause-investigation information data specified by the malfunction-cause-investigation information range determination table.