But given Tesla's history of skirting other legal rules, and their history of releasing driver data from autopilot accidents, I would expect the opt-out to operate more as "we record anyway and then delete it after the fact if you opt out and we don't need the data to protect Tesla."
~85% of cars have EDR (event data recorders) which are always recording locally.
NHTSA requires cars with EDRs to record 15 specific attributes. They’ve also considered making EDRs mandatory, but basically didn’t bother since the vast majority of cars already have them.
You need an EDR to implement ADAS features, and some of those are becoming mandatory.
But given Tesla's history of skirting other legal rules, and their history of releasing driver data from autopilot accidents, I would expect the opt-out to operate more as "we record anyway and then delete it after the fact if you opt out and we don't need the data to protect Tesla."