I do not know the details, but Horn - who blames the engineers in your article - was fired too, two weeks before your article was published (with two other executives): http://www.autoblog.com/2015/09/24/horn-hackenburg-hatz-fire...

What if it's true?

VAG said they had come clean, and now there's another software defeat going through in some Audi models now. Another rogue engineer? That hardly seems credible. Corporate bad faith and malfeasance? They're already in the thick of it.