Patent 7484816 was granted and assigned to Honda on February, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A vehicle control apparatus for controlling a prime mover and wheel brakes which are equipped in a vehicle with an automatic transmission. The vehicle control apparatus includes a prime mover stopping unit which stops and restarts the prime mover under predetermined conditions, and a braking force retaining unit which retains braking force of each of the wheel brakes. Even if the automatic transmission is set in a neutral range, the braking force retaining unit is controlled to retain the braking force of the wheel brakes for a first predetermined time after the operation of a brake operation member is disengaged.