No

https://www.hologram.io/blog/what-is-an-esim-and-how-is-it-u....

> The eSIM (embedded SIM) is a small chip soldered directly to a board inside a device

TBF, eSIM as you describe it is not "no physical sim card at all", so they might be confusing it with something else. (I assumed, based on their phrasing, that they were talking about a virtuallized SIM card running in a (hopefully suitably locked-down) VM.)