Cartin' gives golf cart dealers a way to stay with the owner after the sale

The second annual GolfCarting Expo & Dealer Summit brought golf cart manufacturers, dealers and owners to the Charleston Area Convention Center from October 1 to 3, 2026, with 75,000 square feet of exhibit floor set aside for carts, accessories and technology. AutoMobility Advisors was there with our new client Cartin', which exhibited at Booth 909.

Cartin' is a lifestyle brand built around a navigation app for golf carts and low-speed vehicles (LSVs), the street-legal carts that can travel roads typically posted at 35 mph and under. At the booth, a demo screen and an orange tablecloth listing the app's features sat beside a merchandise table stacked with tees reading “Respect the Locals” and “LSV Racing Team.” Cartin' treats its customer as someone who bought a cart for dinner with friends, Saturday morning coffee and sunset rides, and it has built both the software and the brand around those trips.

Routing for golf carts and LSVs

Google Maps and Apple Maps route for cars, so they will send a golf cart onto roads it isn't allowed to use. Cartin' starts by asking whether the driver has a golf cart or a street-legal LSV, and it returns only the routes that vehicle can legally take. An LSV gets a wider set of options because it can use low-speed roads, typically those posted at 35 mph and under, while a golf cart stays on the paths and streets where carts are permitted.

Directions arrive turn by turn with the distance to each turn, and on a compatible CarPlay display they move from the phone to the dash. Search works by category, so a driver can tap grocery, food and drink, parks, golf or pools and see hours, distance and ratings before choosing where to go. After the ride, a gas savings screen shows what the owner saved by taking the cart, both for that trip and as a running lifetime total.

Cartin' says the app works anywhere carts and LSVs are part of daily life, which it lists as cart communities, beach towns, golf communities and neighborhoods.

Friends Radar, poker runs and scavenger hunts

Friends Radar shows a rider which Cartin' friends are nearby on the map, and riders can add each other to a crew with one tap. Because the map already shows where a rider's friends are, meeting up for coffee or a sunset ride no longer takes a round of text messages.

The games run on that same map, starting with the poker run, in which the organizer sets the stops, each rider draws a card on arrival at every one, and the best hand at the end wins. A scavenger hunt hands riders a clue, asks for a photo at each location and keeps a timer running until the last stop.

Cartin' carries that social side into apparel, with tees named Cruiser Club, Social Club and LSV Racing Team on display at the booth and sold through its online shop. The brand's mascot, a bearded cart driver in sunglasses, appears on the booth backdrop, the tablecloth and the stickers on the table.

What dealers, rental companies and communities get

Dealers, rental companies and cart communities can build their own scavenger hunts, poker runs and events in Cartin' for their customers and residents. A dealer that runs a monthly poker run through the app sees its customers between service visits, a rental company can hand a visitor routes and places to go along with the keys, and a community can post its events where residents already look.

Automakers have spent years building connected services and owner apps so they can stay in contact with a customer after the sale. Our read is that golf cart manufacturers and dealers now face the same task, with a customer who uses the vehicle for short local trips close to home. Cartin' gives them a ready way to do it, because the app is already something owners open when they ride.

We think the dealers who act on this first will hold an advantage that is hard to copy. An owner who rides to a dealer-run event every month has a standing reason to come back for service, accessories and the next cart, and that habit forms around whichever dealer organized the ride.

AMA's work with Cartin'

AutoMobility Advisors is supporting Cartin' with go-to-market strategy and business development in the golf cart industry. The questions the product raises for manufacturers and dealers are ones our team has worked through with automakers and their retail networks, including who holds the customer relationship after delivery and how software keeps an owner engaged after the purchase.

Cartin' is free to download from the App Store, with an optional Premium subscription, and the full feature list is at cartin.app. Dealers, rental companies and communities can contact Cartin' through its site, and golf cart manufacturers who want to discuss the product are welcome to contact AutoMobility Advisors.