The invention provides a vehicle control method and a vehicle control device. A friction clutch of a vehicle is kept disengaged, with slack in the stroke eliminated, while the vehicle is stopped. In response to a request to stop a motor generator, if the motor rotational speed of the motor generator is larger than a predetermined rotational speed, the motor rotational speed is reduced using the predetermined rotational speed as a target motor rotational speed. When the motor rotational speed has reached the predetermined rotational speed, the motor rotational speed is reduced toward zero, while a limit is placed on the torque of the motor generator.