The finite-time stabilization problem of single chained system is investigated in this paper. The potential linear structure of the n-dimensional chained system is exploited, and then the chained system is divided into a scalar subsystem and a (n-1)-dimensional LTV subsystem. Furthermore, the controllability of the LTV subsystem which has a time-varying function system matrix is proved. Then, a discontinuous feedback control laws is proposed by using the terminal sliding mode control method along with a piecewise control strategy. The chained system is finite-time stabilized due to the finite-time convergence property of the terminal sliding mode. Finally, the proposed strategy is applied to a car-like wheeled mobile robot, and the results are verified by simulations.