According to the report, it seems that Apple and BMW were at some point in negotiations. Apparently the Cupertino company wanted to use BMW’s i3 electric car as the basis of their own electric car, but it seems that a deal to possibly license the technology was not reached, thus causing the negotiations to be broken off.
It is unclear if Apple plans on picking up where the previous negotiations had left of, but recent statements from BMW seems to suggest that the German carmaker is interested. Earlier this month, BMW openly stated that they would be open to the idea of working with Apple on their car project.
It is possible that BMW is open to the idea IF Apple were working on such a project, so it’s not so much a confirmation but rather BMW keeping their options open. In the meantime the BMW i3 while not necessarily a speed-demon like Tesla’s own electric cars, has been pretty well-received to date.