That's false. The Waymo-Uber case contains patent claims, though 3 of the 4 were dropped at the judge's suggestion. So it seems that Google has patented quite a few aspects of their self-driving vehicles. The article I found didn't list the patent they're still pursuing against Uber, but here's the 3 patents Google decided not to pursue:
What if the source code is in a different language from the one you use? Should a patent force Google to port their code specifically for you? What if the 3D files are for an expensive program that's different from the one you use? Should a patent force Google to convert their files for use with every 3D modeling program?
Patents are about telling you how to do the work, not about doing it for you.
https://www.google.com/patents/US8836922
https://www.google.com/patents/US9285464
https://www.google.com/patents/US9086273