DRIVE CONTROLLER OF HYBRID VEHICLE, AND DRIVE CONTROLLING METHOD FOR HYBRID VEHICLE

Limiting torque of a motor to avoid its overheating results in switching to engine-driven traveling, thus leading to lower fuel efficiency, which is a problem. FIG. (D) shows the torque of the motor . When finding that the difference ΔEm between the power consumption rates is larger than the threshold EmT calculated by using the section distances d and d, the power consumption calculation unit sets a temperature threshold for torque limitation on the motor to a low value so as to prevent the motor from overheating. In other words, when the fuel efficiency improvement effect in the second section is large, the torque in the first section is limited. As a result, the motor is limited in its torque in the first section p-f, which makes the first section p-f a hybrid traveling section where the vehicle is driven by the motor and the engine . Meanwhile, the second section f-f is a traveling section where the vehicle is driven by the motor only. In this manner, overheating of the motor is suppressed in the gradient-climbing traveling section as stable motor-driven traveling is performed in the section that follows the gradient-climbing traveling section and that offers a high fuel efficiency improvement effect. This improves the fuel efficiency.