SAN FRANCISCO—General Motors Co.’s Cruise and Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo self-driving car subsidiaries on Thursday became the first companies to receive autonomous vehicle permits to offer rides to passengers in California. Cruise has obtained a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles to offer driverless rides to passengers at night in some parts of San Francisco, and Waymo has won a permit from the regulator to deploy autonomous vehicles with safety drivers behind the wheel. The DMV said it would allow commercial service for the companies, but said they would need to obtain another permit from the California Public Utilities Commission to start charging passengers for rides. Another company, Nuro, last year received a California self-driving deployment permit, but that was for delivery of goods, not passenger rides. The California DMV said the new permit would allow Cruise to operate its vehicles “within designated parts of San Francisco” between 10 …