german car sales rose in october official data showed thursday but analysts were still pessimistic as soaring prices and recession fears clouded the outlook around 208000 new cars were registered last month the kba federal transport authority said in a statement  a 168percent increase from a year earlier but the jump mainly reflected last years record low in october when manufacturers were blighted by acute supply chain issue the vdik car importers federation president reinhard zirpel said octobers figures were still the second weakest on record and well below the long term average zirpel said carmakers sales were boosted by big order backlogs which they were slowly working through as supply issues eased he said auto manufacturers have for months had to deal with supply issues with shortages of key components leading to intermittent production stops and a slump in sales but lower demand from consumers amid a weakening economy could soon cause the market as many problems as strained supply chains zirpel said analysts see germany drifting towards recession as soaring prices for energy in the wake of the russian invasion of ukraine weigh on industry and consumers auto manufacturers were facing up to a further difficult year ahead ey analyst peter fuss said meanwhile sales of electric cars continued to outperform the market as a whole sales of batterypowered cars rose 171 percent while those of plugin hybrids were up 35 percent