Sumit Mahato is an energy storage engineer and independent consultant based in Bengaluru. He spent seven years at Tesla working across the battery value chain, from cell and pack manufacturing to utility-scale and residential products: commissioning Megapack production lines, supporting the global launch of Powerwall 3 across three regulatory regions, and leading fleet reliability programmes that cut field failures across deployed systems. He now runs SMahato Consulting, advising Indian energy companies on storage product performance, testing and reliability, and is independently designing an energy management system built around Indian grid codes and market mechanisms. He also produces a narrative podcast on Indian industrial founders. His work focuses on one question: what does it take for India to build, rather than import, the technology that runs its grid?