At present, due to some elevator cars (EC) has no air conditioning system, resulting in a hot internal environment in the EC in summer. Thermoelectric cooling technology is a lightweight, low cost and fast cooling technology, which has a potential of solving this problem. Thus, a thermoelectric elevator car air conditioner (TE-ECAC) is designed for these EC in this paper. Based on the actual application, the TE-ECAC's cooling characteristic and performance are experimentally investigated in an Enthalpy Lab, and its performance is optimized after the analysis. According to the results, it's found that a stable working state of the TE-ECAC can be achieved at about 200s. Moreover, an optimal cooling coefficient of 1.24 and a maximum air-cooling capacity of 324W are achieved under an operation condition at the cold side flow rate of 1.75 m3/min and the ambient temperature of 28 °C. In addition, since TE-ECAC has greater advantages in economy and weight than conventional elevator air conditioner, it's particularly suitable for EC. Especially suitable for some old EC with a broken air conditioner and must to be replaced with a new air conditioner. All in all, it's a good application prospects for TE-ECAC applying to EC. Keywords: Thermoelectric cooling, Cooling coefficient, Air-cooling capacity, Elevator car, Optimization