It's more plausible to me when you think about centralization vs decentralization.
Sure, it would clearly be cheaper to emit less if the emissions were mostly coming from a small number of controlled facilities.
But when the sources are millions of tailpipes and smokestacks across the globe, it's at least plausible that a centralized, new recapture solution would be cheaper than decreasing emissions in millions of old places.
It also depends a lot on price of electricity. Norway has a lot of electric cars because it is a rainy country with terrain very suitable for dams and cheap hydro production.
With enough small modular reactors, we might get to the same point elsewhere. The German renewables mix does seem to drive prices up, especially in certain peaks, because nature is unpredictable and you can absolutely have a freak streak of several windless, dark, cold days in the winter.
Sure, for now. But pretty much all of Europe, large parts of the US, much of China have plans to ban gas vehicles in the near future (< 15 years). Once that happens most of the rest of the world will follow quickly because there will be just less supply chain support for gas vehicles, and what remains will quickly become a diminishing fraction of the total.
I definitely see this happening much faster than any attempts at atmospheric capture would even make a tiny dent.
Sure, it would clearly be cheaper to emit less if the emissions were mostly coming from a small number of controlled facilities. But when the sources are millions of tailpipes and smokestacks across the globe, it's at least plausible that a centralized, new recapture solution would be cheaper than decreasing emissions in millions of old places.