Currently,stainless steel railway vehicles body and structure are usually assembled by resistance spot welding process. The weak points of this process are the poor surface quality and bad airtight due to the pressure of electrodes. The partial penetration lap laser welding is investigated as a solution for the disadvantages of resistant spot welding stainless steel railway vehicles. In this paper the joint strength,appearance quality,microscopic structure and the working efficiency of a laser welding and resistance spot welding process are compared,and the results show that laser welding process can replace the resistance spot welding process to manufacture stainless steel car body,and can satisfy the demands of both the connection strength and the level of car body appearance. The application of lap laser welding process improves the production efficiency of stainless steel vehicle.