PURPOSE: To make the plane area of a hoistway small by dividing a balance weight into plural ones to be disposed at the comer parts of the hoistway, and fitting the primary coil of a linear motor on either of the balance weight and a guide rail, and a secondary conductor on the other.

CONSTITUTION: A car 3 is surrounded by side surface walls 3a, a front wall 3b, and corner surface walls 3c which are oblique to the side surface wall 3a and the front wall 3 at the two deep corners, and the cross section is pentagon. Guide rollers 21 which are constituted from three rollers are installed in the car 3, guide rails 22 are stand-installed in a hoistway 1 to guide the guide rollers 21 on either side, and the primary conductor 23 of a linear motor is fitted on the other side. Balance weights 24 which are disposed in the hoistway 1 on the external sides of the corner surface walls 3c of the car 3 consist of a frame 25, a triangle pole-shaped weight 26 placed in the frame 25, and the primary coil 27 of the linear motor which is disposed at both the sides of the secondary conductor 23 with clearance which is fitted in the frame 25. The balance weight 24 is divided into two, so that the primary coil 27 can be made small to reduce the size of the balance weight 24, so it is thus possible to make the plane area of the hoistway 1 small.