Sure, maybe, but it’ll take quite a while for the available stock of privately owned autonomous vehicles to increase to the point that you can rely on that instead of having to run your own fleet of them. There definitely won’t be enough time before the money runs out for that to happen. Their best bet for not having to become the largest fleet manager in the world will be to get an auto manufacturer (or several) to partner with them to own and maintain the vehicles for them.
Personally I think the autonomous vehicle thing is mostly just a diversion to distract from the monopoly play. The real inflection point for them (in the US at least) is going to be whether or not they can outlast Lyft. If Lyft goes under I expect that Uber will raise rates while dropping the proportion of the fare that goes to the driver significantly.
