The diesel manipulations are of one of the most extensive fraud series in German economic history. It revealed not only the misdeeds of the automotive industry, but also of state authorities who were unwilling and unable to uncover a fraud that lasted almost ten years. This paper uses VW as an example to qualitatively investigate the causes and influencing factors in the Diesel Scandal. The diesel manipulations at VW are found to originate from external determinants of a lacking and imprecise regulation by Germany and the EU, a low willingness-to-pay for climate-friendly mobility by consumers, as well as internal determinants of a misguided growth strategy, a dual ownership structure and a dysfunctional culture that fostered incentives to "look-the-other-way