Takinglight-weighting and cost-effectiveness into consideration, thin-walled hybrid tubes which are composed of carbon fiber reinforced plastic(CFRP)tube and metallic tube will be more widely used. Unlike existing structure of CFRP wrapping metal, oth- er two types of aluminium/CFRP hybrid tubes, i.e. coaxial tube with inner CFRP and outer aluminium(CFRP/Al), coaxial tube with inner aluminium and outer CFRP(Al/CFRP), were also developed in this paper. Failure modes and energy absorption characteristics were investigated experimentally. The interaction between CFRP and aluminum alloy was considered in the failure modes analysis. The principal sources of energy dissipation were discussed. The results showed that the failure modes of the CFRP are strongly dependent on the structure of the hybrid tubes. Besides, different failure modes account for different proportions in different tubes. The collapse mecha- nism of aluminium in hybrid tubes is also different from that individual aluminum tubes. The aluminium tube in hybrid tubes tends to take the progressive plastic deformation mode, while individual aluminium tubes present progressive fracture mode. Furthermore, the energy absorption(EA)capacity and mean crush force(MCF)of hybrid tubes exceed the sum of those of the individual metal tube and CFRP tube. The results can be beneficial for the design of energy absorbing structures.