VEHICLE CONTROL DEVICE

A vehicle control device connecting platoon participating vehicles to one another via radio communication, to control platooning of the platoon participating vehicles, the platoon participating vehicle includes a leading vehicle and following vehicles that perform automatic follow-up running in line with a predetermined intervehicle distance from the leading vehicle, During execution of the platooning, the vehicle control device acquires, for each of the platoon participating vehicles, information of an estimated value of retardation based on a driven torque generated when coasting solely in its current vehicle state, the vehicle control device controls the driven torque of each of the platoon participating vehicles so that the platoon participating vehicles align in ascending order of the estimated value of retardation increasing rearward in sequence from the leading vehicle.