Electric engines run at 92% efficiency. Car engines run at ~15%. So energy density need not reach equivalence.
That physicist is wrong too (Nobel prizes don't mean you aren't wrong - it just means people listen to you more) - jet engines on planes require oxygen to work - hence capped at ~10 km altitude with massive drag causing ineffecient travel.
10 years till battery tech reaches complete parity for lowest denominator cars, and 7 years before we start to see hyper sonic electric passenger jets being tested way up in the upper atmosphere (no oxygen needed, go as high and fast as you want - London - LA in a few hours - space views - cheap power).
What? 10 years until battery technology has advanced to the point of parity?
Gasoline has an energy density of 132 MJ/US gal, or say 1500 MJ on a full small tank. Modern engines hit 30% thermal efficiency, but then there are drive train losses etc, so I'll give you the 15% as an absolute worst case, AND give you a 100% efficient electric motor / drive train. Therefore your car needs to provide 225 MJ of stored energy for parity.
The best commercially-available Li-ion battery has an energy density of around 245 Wh/kg, or ~ 880 kJ/kg. Therefore you need at least 255kg of conventional batteries for motive energy parity (ie. not counting heat/AC/light etc.). The equivalent in gasoline (0.77 kg/l), weighs 35 kg.
You are asking for nearly a ten-fold increase in usable energy density in battery technology in ten years, at price-parity with gasoline, and with the charging infrastructure to support it. I don't think it's going to happen - assuming lithium-air batteries ARE commercialised on that time scale, the cost of charging that kind of energy in reasonable time, safely, is going to be the real problem here. Every gas station is going to need its own nuclear power plant!
Don't rest all your hopes on ITER. Alternative approaches that could well be cheaper and come to fruition a lot sooner include NIF/LIFE, polywell, focus fusion, General Fusion, Tri-Alpha, Helion, levitated dipole, petawatt picosecond laser fusion, and Sandia's new approach to magnetized inertial fusion.
If none of them work, advanced fission designs like LFTR or IFR could be almost as good, with better safety and a hundred times less nuclear waste than conventional reactors.
Electric engines run at 92% efficiency. Car engines run at ~15%. So energy density need not reach equivalence.
That physicist is wrong too (Nobel prizes don't mean you aren't wrong - it just means people listen to you more) - jet engines on planes require oxygen to work - hence capped at ~10 km altitude with massive drag causing ineffecient travel.
10 years till battery tech reaches complete parity for lowest denominator cars, and 7 years before we start to see hyper sonic electric passenger jets being tested way up in the upper atmosphere (no oxygen needed, go as high and fast as you want - London - LA in a few hours - space views - cheap power).