Down the Shore, it feels like everybody has a street-legal golf cart. Here’s how much they’re paying for them.

James “Flip” Caruso shelled out $21,000 for what he calls “a golf cart on steroids.”

Over the past six years, Caruso said, the investment has been well worth it.

While at their family home in Cape May, Caruso and his relatives take the street-legal cart — technically called a low-speed electric vehicle, or LSV — all over the island. That allows their cars to stay put on their residential street near the beach, where parking is at a premium.

And “if we have to go off the island or farther away, we’ll put the golf cart there to save the spot,” said the 53-year-old, who works as an EMT and a board operator at a chemical plant. While you’re riding, he added, the experience is better, more beach-y than riding in a car: “You’re open to the elements on nice, sunny days.”

Caruso got in on the low-speed vehicle trend right before interest exploded at the Jersey Shore during the pandemic. He has seen more of these vehicles on Cape May roadways in recent years, as the local community of dealers and rental businesses has grown to meet the demand of beach homeowners, regular Shore-goers, and casual tourists.

“It definitely just enhances their vacation experience,” said Andy Duffy, majority owner of Shore Rides, which opened two years ago in Margate and offers rentals in several towns, including Ocean City and Sea Isle. “It brings you back to when you were a kid, and you’re driving around in a Jeep with the top off.”

The going rate to purchase an LSV varies based on make, model, and the bells and whistles. “They’re getting really sophisticated” with Bluetooth speakers and backup cameras, said John Romano, owner of Wildwood Golf Carts. “They’re almost making LSVs the same as regular cars.”

Generally, pre-owned vehicles start at $6,000, and new ones range from $12,000 to $30,000 or more.

“I’d say most people either want the least expensive or the most expensive,” said Ethan McGinnis, co-owner of South Jersey Electric Vehicles and the manager of its Rio Grande location. “It’s usually ‘Hey, I just want to get one’ or ‘I want to go all out.’”

And if a beachgoer isn’t quite ready to make a purchase?

At shops from Egg Harbor Township to Cape May, customers can rent LSVs for $700 to $1,000 a week during the prime summer season. Several businesses, however, have been sold out for weeks and have limited availability through Labor Day.

These vehicles have been around for years, with their popularity increasing in the years before COVID and then growing exponentially since then.

Business at Wildwood Golf Carts, which does sales and rentals, is up 40% over its inaugural 2022 season, Romano said.

“It’s become how people vacation down here,” said Christian Barron, owner of Cape May Beach Buggy. “People see them and they want to drive them.”

Barron started his business in 2018 as a nighttime taxi service, a side gig to get him though law school. Soon, his customers started asking if they could rent the street-legal golf carts, so he invested in a couple more. The first summer the company did rentals, they had two available. The next, they had four. Now, they have a fleet of 33.

Vacationers like the smaller, easy-to-park vehicles, business owners said. In North Wildwood, LSVs can be parked in LSV-specific spots with an annual permit, which costs $400, and Cape May also has some spaces for “golf cart parking only.”

There are also environmental benefits and financial savings of electrical vehicles, which charge in a few hours. For beach days, there’s an ease, too, to dropping off and picking up people, chairs, coolers, and other supplies.

“It is a lot easier to load Nanny and Pop-Pop in a golf cart,” said Rich Bastian, president of Orange Moose Golf Carts in Adventures.

And, despite LSVs’ presence for several years now, there’s still a sense of novelty to them.

When Bastian drops carts off to renters, “I know what Santa Claus feels like,” he said. “I drive up to these houses and these kids come out … They just go nuts.”

The consumer demand for LSVs has continued to increase, despite uncertainty in the Shore home rental market and pushback in some towns over safety concerns.

“There is a misperception by some people that we don’t have people follow safety rules,” said Duffy, of Shore Rides. “I’ve read a lot of Facebook comments: ‘Oh, they’re driving around with their kids’” with no child seat.

In actuality, he said, “telling the renters the safety rules and guidelines is of the utmost importance.”

Drivers of low-speed vehicles have to follow the same traffic rules as regular cars. Plus electric vehicles are physically unable to travel faster than 25 miles an hour and are prohibited from traveling on roads with higher speed limits.

Shore-town Facebook groups often heatedly debate whether low-speed vehicle drivers abide by these rules, and whether their presence makes these towns more or less safe. A post last summer by Caruso, the high-end LSV owner, drew more than 100 comments, many of which were negative. One user wrote simply: “They should be banned.”

Caruso sees the social-media hate. But as he’s driving his LSV — fashioned with a shark-fin on top — around Cape May, “everybody that I run into, they absolutely love it,” he said. “They’re like ‘That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’ ”

Officials from four police departments along the coast reported no major accidents involving low-speed vehicles in recent memory.

“We’ve had some minor fender benders,” said Bob Reichanek, traffic safety lieutenant for the Ocean City Police Department. “Definitely no serious injuries.”

Ventnor Police Chief Joe Fussner did say LSV drivers can have an “on-vacation, carefree attitude.”

North Wildwood Police Capt. Justin Robinson said that “when people think of low-speed vehicles, they think of golf carts or things they just use for fun.” But there are risks, police said, and those risks go up when drivers and passengers disregard basic safety rules.

The biggest challenge has been educating LSV drivers about certain road rules, such as the prohibition on driving on higher-speed roadways and the requirement that children under 8 use a car seat, as in any other vehicle. There have been minor issues, too, with LSV drivers parking in illegal spots, driving on sidewalks, and not wearing seat belts.

In Cape May, LSV business owners said they meet with police officers every spring to go over safety rules and concerns. In Ocean City, the police department posted a short video about LSV safety on its social media this May.

When drivers follow the rules, Reichanek said, the vehicles are safe.

Business owners see consumer demand for LSVs only increasing in the years to come.

“It’s a force,” said Barron, of Cape May Beach Buggy, “and it’s not going anywhere.”