This is correct (AFAIK). Uber did operate AVs in San Francisco around 2016, but they did so while openly refusing to apply for permits [0], which would have then required them to disclose. They pulled their AVs at the end of 2016 and moved them to Arizona. Only recently, did Uber apply properly to have cars in SF, and apparently it's only been so far to give rides to Uber employees [1].

Also of note from [1]: apparently California is just weeks away from allowing AVs with no human operators. I'm guessing Uber wouldn't have been ready to try that out in any reasonable scale (if the state of the program is as bad as the internal docs say), though the cynical person in me thinks that, if the AZ fatality hadn't happened, they might have had a non-human-assisted AV in SF just to get some slice of the publicity.

[0] https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/22/14062926/uber-self-drivi...

[1]