Volkswagen cheating scandal

Volkswagen's emissions scandal affects 11 million cars worldwide, with 500,000 of those in the US.
Now the investigation into the cause of the scandal is centered around two high-level engineers, The Wall Street Journal's William Boston reported.
But that's just the beginning of the story.
Buried in Boston's article about engineers Ulrich Hackenberg and Wolfgang Hatz are clues to the true source of VW's crisis.
The scandal's roots go beyond alleged malfeasance on the part of a pair of engineers. A series of personal and professional rivalries that go back to the early days of the VW's diesel strategy are largely to blame.
A decade ago, the VW brand was run by Wolfgang Bernhard, who was recently hired away from rival Daimler-Benz by then-Volkswagen Group CEO Bernd Pischetsrieder.
According to Boston, Bernhard was seen as an outsider and faced stiff opposition from certain VW corporate insiders, such as Audi's then-CEO Martin Winterkorn.
The two butted heads during the planning phase of VW's now-infamous EA189 2-liter TDI engine, which is at the heart of the current crisis.
At the time, with more stringent diesel emissions standards looming, Bernhard licensed clean-diesel technology called "BlueTec" for his former employers at Mercedes-Benz. Winterkorn and his team at Audi submitted plans for a new diesel engine developed in-house that would become the EA189.
Sources within the company told Boston that many VW engineers felt that the company's native technology was not good enough to return sufficiently low emissions.