Yes, but it doesn't mean that Uber cannot catch up. As Musk said, it's very easy (relatively) to get to 99% driverless cars, but it's the 1% that is truly difficult (with all edge cases). Furthermore, say driverless car technologies for all companies come around the same time (plus/minus a year) - don't you think Uber would have the distinct network effect advantage that Google would have to build from scratch? Said another way, would you rather bet that Uber can make up the 1 year technology lead (ex. aggressively hiring and more R&D) in driverless car FASTER than Google can make a uber-like driver/rider worldwide car share network?

That being said I don't think Google (who is also an investor in Uber) would - they're mainly looking to license out the software. This is also leading to problems because car companies are realizing how pivotal this is going to be and want to control the entire process rather than be downgraded to a mere OEM.