I remember when the car salesman showed us the tire-inflation pump tucked into the trunk of the new 2013 Chevrolet Volt we were looking at while car shopping to replace a rusting Toyota Corolla in the family fleet.

I actually thought that using the tire pump, which was meant to replace a spare tire deemed too heavy for the electric Volt, might ultimately be easier than changing a flat. Besides, the car came with three years of free roadside assistance via General Motors' OnStar.

We'd be all set in the event of a flat, I thought when we agreed to buy the Volt two years ago. This was the natural evolution of automobile travel: No more spare.

How wrong I was, I realized last week, after waiting three and a half hours for a tow, stranded by the side of a country road in a snowstorm in western Massachusetts, the quite flat tire unresponsive to all my frantic ministrations with the Volt's tire pump.

We were on our way to the hospital to visit a newborn the evening the flat occurred. We never made it.

In hindsight, I realize how stupid it was to think a little electric pump could inflate a badly punctured tire, no matter how much gooey chemical you first inject into it.

It's funny how you can so easily overlook the obvious when you're talking yourself into buying a new car.

The lack of a spare seemed a small price to pay to get bragging rights for driving a no-emissions vehicle.

With a tax break built into a lease subsidized by the manufacturer, the monthly nut for an electric Volt wasn't much more than a routine Toyota, especially after factoring in the savings of not having to fill up with gas anymore.

Indeed, the Volt has generally proven to be on the moderate end of the car-buying sticker spectrum. In addition to the gas savings, maintenance is nominal. It was two years before the first oil change was necessary and the dealer threw that in gratis.

Tires, though, appear to be more problematic.

After last week's flat, I found a lot of online forums with people complaining about the heavy wear on Volt tires, which apparently were specifically designed, like many other things on the Volt, for optimal weight and mileage.

I've already had two flats and, after last week's incident, the Chevrolet dealer in Rhode Island where I bought the car agreed to replace a third badly worn tire and reimburse me for the second. That's three out of four tires flamed out after 27,000 miles.

Bad tires and no spare is a perfect breakdown storm brewing. Add in dysfunctional response by GM's roadside service, and it makes me long for the good old days of a rusted Toyota that clocked tens of thousands of trouble-free miles, with a spare tire always ready.

It's not just the Volt and other electric cars that have eliminated spare tires; manufacturers have decided spare tires are an easy target for reducing vehicle weight and improving fleet fuel-efficiency numbers.

A lot of people are being asked to look into the trunk in new car showrooms and ponder the prospects of using one of these pumps to reinflate a flat.

OnStar's abandonment of us in western Massachusetts, as we watched the snow come down, was made worse because it was mid-afternoon when we started and we were soon racing against the clock for nearby tire stores that were preparing to close.

In the end, we arrived at a Firestone dealer 10 minutes before it closed at 7 p.m., the final deadline before being stranded for the night.

No spare and you can pretty much plan on an end to your trip if the flat occurs late at night or on a Sunday.

I'm glad to avoid gas stations and lose the carbon emissions with this dawn of a new era of driving.

But maybe the simple beauty of a spare tire in the trunk is hard to deny.

This is the opinion of David Collins

d.collins@theday.com

Twitter: @DavidCollinsct