They will save millions of lives and are a matter of when, not if, according to the man behind the driverless car brain that could lead the automotive market as soon as 2030.

Dave Ferguson, 35, supervises the development of the computer brain controlling Google's driverless car — currently being made by a team of 17 software engineers.

The New Zealander also has the Mars Rover on his impressive resume and says driverless cars are the only fix to a tragedy we ignore every day.

"Every year we lose 1.2 million people worldwide to vehicle accidents."

"If this was a disease or this was terrorism or something we would be up in arms trying to fix this"

"Instead it's something we do badly every day."

Ferguson told Sunday Night driverless vehicles are not a question of if, but when.

"There is no doubt that we will have self driving cars out on the roads. The question is just when. I think it will be sooner than people realise and I think when we look back we're going to wonder how we felt this was never going to happen

He told Alex Cullen they could be on the market as soon as 2030 and the target consumers will include seniors, giving them independence when they lose their ability to drive safely.

"Our overall population is aging, and people between the ages of 65 and up are one of the largest growing parts of our population because of the baby boomer generation right and these are folks that really value their independence right."

Photo - Dave Ferguson heads up development of Google's driverless car 'brain'

Alex Cullen - Yahoo News