Disclosed is an operating method of a vehicle control apparatus controlling autonomous driving based on a vehicle external object including performing primary object detection based on a first vehicle external image received from a camera to obtain first object information, setting a first reflective area for reflection light based on the first object information, generating a second vehicle external image, in which a reflective image inside the first reflective area is removed from the first vehicle external image, using pixel values inside the first reflective area, performing secondary object detection based on the second vehicle external image to obtain second object information, determining reliability of the second object information based on information about the reflective image and the second object information, and controlling the autonomous driving of the vehicle based on the second object information when the reliability of the second object information is higher than a setting value.