Vehicle control device and vehicle control method

Abstract

A vehicle control device includes a recognizer configured to recognize a position of a vehicle, a driving controller configured to control one or both of acceleration/deceleration and steering of the vehicle and to cause the vehicle to travel in one of a plurality of driving modes in which tasks imposed on an occupant of the vehicle are different, and a mode determiner configured to determine a driving mode which is to be performed by the driving controller. The recognizer recognizes first road information including road marking objects near the vehicle with respect to a position of the vehicle on the basis of a recognition result from an external sensor, recognizes second road information including road marking objects near the vehicle from map information on the basis of position information of the vehicle, and performs a process of recognizing the position of the vehicle through matching between the first road information and the second road information. The mode determiner switches the driving mode of the vehicle to a driving mode in which a task imposed on the occupant of the vehicle is heavier than that of a driving mode which is being performed by the vehicle when switching conditions for switching the driving mode of the vehicle are satisfied after the position of the vehicle has become unable to be recognized.