Our understanding of the issues is interesting to discuss (personally, I don’t see the difference between an elevator motor working harder to lift me, or my refrigerator/air conditioner working harder to cool my food/family), but this has been discussed extensively by people who know halacha and the science of elevator workings better than most of us here.
Please see the links below for a halachic discussion based on the way elevators work.
(editor/moderator – please allow the links below, since this is purely halacha and applicable for the discussion at hand)
http://www.megavolt.co.il/articles_H/elevator1.html
http://www.megavolt.co.il/articles_H/elevator2.html