Steve Wozniak was an early Tesla fan - now he calls its design a 'miserable' experience.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was once one of Tesla's biggest advocates. A decade ago, he praised the company's innovation and called his Model S the best car he had ever owned. But nowadays, his opinion has shifted dramatically.

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Credit: Lucid

As reported by Fortune, Wozniak has been a very vocal critic of both Musk and Tesla. In particular, criticizing Tesla's evolving design, calling the user experience "miserable" and the company's approach to technology one of the worst he has encountered.

"Coming from Apple, the user interface, the way you deal with technology, is the most important thing in the world to me," Wozniak said, "And Tesla is the worst in the world at that."

One of his biggest frustrations is the car's ever-changing interface, which he says has only gotten worse over time. "Every step up, where they changed a thing in the car, it got worse and worse and worse," he said. Tesla's reliance on touchscreen controls, he argues, has made even basic functions unnecessarily difficult.

He recalled a time when his wife was pulled over for failing to signal a turn, not because she forgot, but because the Tesla's steering wheel design made it difficult to find the turn signal button mid-turn. Even retrieving insurance information from the glove box has become overly complicated, he mentioned, due to its touchscreen interface.

"The policeman had never seen this yoke steering wheel," Wozniak said. "When you're already turning, you can't find the buttons for the turn signal."

"It's kind of a new Tesla, with new software - there's no button for the glove box," he explained. "You have to go and search in menus until you stumble into finding it - it's horrible."

The focus on style over function is a valid critique, especially as more automakers prioritize smart features over intuitive, driver-friendly design. Love or hate Tesla's modern approach, Wozniak's background in software gives him a solid foundation to call out where it falls short.