  New calculations for vanadium dioxide, one of the most controversely
discussed materials for decades, reveal that band theory as based on density
functional theory is well capable of correctly describing the electronic and
magnetic properties of the metallic as well as both the insulating M1 and M2
phases. Considerable progress in the understanding of the physics of VO2 is
achieved by the use of the recently developed hybrid functionals, which include
part of the electron-electron interaction exactly and thereby improve on the
weaknesses of semilocal exchange functionals as provided by the local density
and generalized gradient approximations. Much better agreement with
photoemission data as compared to previous calculations is found and a
consistent description of the rutile-type early transition-metal dioxides is
achieved.
