Google has no intention to beat its competitors in the self-driving cars space, and I suspect it has never actually wanted to produce such cars for mass use.

What it does want is to make self-driving cars widely used, because that would mean that the time currently wasted in commuting by car could turn into increased internet usage, which drives Google's revenue. That's why Google was an early investor in Uber. Its efforts in building self-driving technology are intended as a catalyst for the industry, in which case it seem to have been a success.