That is the impression those pronouncements are intending to give. My point is that it may not reflect reality; it's trying to present "we are way ahead", whether they are or not, as reality, in order to incentivise investment in their company, rather than in a competitors, whilst at the same time scaring away those thinking about attempting to compete by making the moat look wider than it is.
I legitimately don't know who's ahead of who and where the state-of-the-art currently sits, but I do know that I hear far more about Tesla's vision roadmap than Waymo's or Uber's or anyone else's.