Apparatus for controlling hybrid vehicle and method of the same

Abstract

In an internal combustion engine of a hybrid vehicle, a transient driving state occurs at a high frequency. It is rather difficult to control the quantity of fuel due to an adhesion of the fuel on the wall surface in the transient driving state. This results in insufficient reduction of the emission in the transient driving state. The object is thus to provide a vehicle control apparatus that can realize the effective reduction of emission. The vehicle control apparatus receives vehicle information (S200) and determines, based on the input vehicle information, whether or not the state of the vehicle should be shifted from either a combination mode or an internal combustion engine mode to a motor mode, that is, whether or not operation of an internal combustion engine EG is going to stop (S202). When such a mode shift is required, it is determined whether or not a specific warm-up condition is satisfied (S204). The specific warm-up condition is used as a criterion for determining whether or not a fuel-air intake system of the internal combustion engine EG shows a sufficient increase in temperature based on the data of a cooling water temperature sensor and reaches a stationary state, wherein the amount of fuel injected and supplied into the fuel-air intake system and adhering to the wall surface can be estimated readily. When it is determined that the specific warm-up condition is satisfied, the program exits from the routine. When it is determined that the specific warm-up condition is not fulfilled, on the other hand, a table correction process is carried out (S206) to modify the contents of a mode selection table and change the motor mode to the combination mode.