This is not accurate. Wiki has a pretty reasonable page on self driving cars here [1], but you can also look to what led Google to go for Waymo to begin with. [2]

Levandowski had already created a self driving motorcycle for a DARPA challenged in 2004. In 2008 Discovery contacted him for a show about it, but being unable to lend them the vehicle - he instead built a new self driving pizza delivery car for them. He asked Google if they wanted to participate in the show or get involved in self driving, but they were uninterested due to liability. After they show aired and went off without a hitch, they decided to get involved.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_self-driving_cars

[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waymo#Pribot