The company has also been attracting senior talent. One notable recent hire was Zheng Gao, previously the leader of Tesla's autopilot hardware design team, now director of hardware engineering for Zoox.

Cruise's closure
Despite clear demand for robotaxi rides in the U.S. market, GM surprised some longtime industry observers when it announced earlier this month that it was exiting the business.

"Cruise was well on its way to a robotaxi business, but when you look at the fact you're deploying a fleet, there's a whole operations piece of doing that," GM CEO Mary Barra said on a call announcing the strategic change.