It will be 596 km long and will run along the route: Ploiești, Brașov, Făgăraș, Sighișoara, Târgu Mureș, Cluj-Napoca, Zalău and Oradea, connecting with Hungary's M4 motorway near Borș.

[5] By December 2021, all segments have been opened to traffic, with the exception of Chețani − Câmpia Turzii (15.7 km), of which contract was terminated in March that year.

[6] The first segment, between Bucharest – Moara Vlăsiei (19.5 km), was built as a six-lane set of carriageways to accommodate commuting and holiday surplus traffic.

Works on the Comarnic – Brașov section, the most difficult segment of the motorway, were due to begin in 2010 and take around four years to complete,[18] but the French–Greek consortium Vinci–Aktor denounced the contract and construction was canceled.

[21] It has been awarded in December 2013 to the joint venture between Vinci, Strabag and Aktor,[22] for a period of 29 years,[23] with an estimated construction cost of 1.8 billion euro.

[29] According to media reports, works were expected to begin in April 2014,[23] but they were still pending, due to financial arrangements and the environmental certificate.

For section 1, a bid by Spedition UMB and Tehnostrade remained the only one, while the other tender was leaning towards a consortium led by the Spanish construction company Copisa.

[34][33] However, as of October 2017, after the termination of challenge procedures,[35] only the Râșnov – Cristian segment was awarded for construction, to the Cypriot company Alpenside.

[35] In October 2018, the motorway Ploiești – Comarnic – Brașov (around 100 km) was once again tendered, as a public–private partnership, that would take 24 years and have an estimated cost of 1.36 billion euro.

[40] The project received criticism from the NGO called Asociația Pro Infrastructură for lacking details of major importance.

[41] The project was, once more, cancelled in the first quarter of 2020, by the newly elected government, in favor of a new future tender, based on European funds.

The entire section was originally scheduled to be built by the American company Bechtel Corporation together with its regional partner Enka of Turkey.

The contract was awarded in 2004 to the Bechtel Corporation by the Social Democrat Prime-Minister Adrian Năstase without an open bidding process, invoking "national security" as an excuse.

[citation needed] Following the contract renegotiation that occurred in June–July 2011,[49] Bechtel agreed to lower the building cost per kilometer by 50% down to 6.9 million euro.

[45] An additional 8.7 km segment, between Cluj-Napoca West (Gilău) and Nădășelu, was tendered in August 2012,[56] and awarded to the joint venture between Spedition UMB and Tehnostrade in April 2013.

The section from Târgu Mureș, via Ogra, to Câmpia Turzii, with a length of 51.8 km, was tendered in 2014, and for four out of five lots, contracts have been signed at the end of February and early March 2015.

The Ogra – Câmpia Turzii lot 2 (between Iernut – Chețani, 17.9 km) was awarded to the joint-venture between Astaldi and Max Bögl, for a cost of 379.7 million lei (excluding VAT).

The contract for the Târgu Mureș – Ungheni segment (lot 1) was terminated in April 2016, due to delays in pre-construction arrangements by the CNADNR, and was awarded again in November 2017, to the Austrian company Strabag.

On the other hand, the contract for the Ogra – Câmpia Turzii lot 3 was terminated in March 2021, due to the slow construction progress and insolvent status of the constructor.

[75] The remaining works on the Suplacu de Barcău – Borș subsection (64.5 km) were awarded for construction in April 2015 (to the joint-venture of Corsán and Corviam Construcción),[76] but no progress had been recorded as of January 2016.

[86] In September 2020, this was followed by the signing of the contract for the Nușfalău – Suplacu de Barcău segment (13.6 km) with the Turkish company Nurol (costing 384 million lei (excluding VAT), with a term of 6 months for projection and another 18 for construction), later being followed by the signing of the contract for the Nădășelu – Mihăiești – Zimbor segment (30.1 km) with a joint-venture led by Spedition UMB.

The value of this contract is 1.4 billion lei (excluding VAT), having the same terms for projection & construction as that of the Zimbor – Poarta Sălajului segment.