I actually poked into this a bit out of curiosity. Without doing deeper research than I have any interest in, indeed Kalanick never seems to have publicly said anything like "We are so f'ed without self-driving" (which would be a truly idiotic thing to do) and even made some references to the length of the transition. But he also made reference to things like Uber's growth being limited until Uber was cheaper than owning a car and a ton of pubs seem to have "independently" reached the opinion that this was necessary. And I also don't see a lot of fervent denials from Uber in this regard.

"If we are not tied for first, then the person who is in first, or the entity that's in first, then rolls out a ride-sharing network that is far cheaper or far higher-quality than Uber's, then Uber is no longer a thing," Kalanick said." - https://www.businessinsider.com/travis-kalanick-interview-on...

>And I also don't see a lot of fervent denials from Uber in this regard.

Why would there be? If it's helping their stock price or even neutral to it then why deny it and risk it going down?

It seems like a narrow path to try to navigate. When a reporter prefaces a question with "Next year when you've perfected your transform-manure-into-gold machine..." it seems executives either quash that nonsense, run away screaming "I can't hear you!", or make themselves liable when the TMIG machine doesn't ever work.