Cuban mechanic Juan Carlos Pino, who has an eighth-grade education, has developed a system to power his modified 1980 Polish‑built Polski car, adapted to run on charcoal, a cheaper and more abundant alternative to gasoline since the US cut off oil shipments to the Caribbean island. Pino built the contraption from his workshop in Aguacate, population 5,000, a town about 70 km (45 miles) east of Havana that once thrived on a now-shuttered sugar refinery. The charcoal burns inside a converted propane tank sealed shut with a transformer, a filter made from a stainless steel milk jug, and a steering system from the Czech group AVIA. The device was created entirely from scrap and repurposed items.