Herein, a novel type of carbon-coated SnO2 nanotubes has been designed and synthesized through a facile two-step hydrothermal approach by using ZnO nanorods as templates. During the synthetic route, SnO2 nanocrystals and carbon layer have been uniformly deposited on the rod-like templates in sequence, meanwhile ZnO nanorods could be in situ dissolved owing to the generated alkaline and acidic environments during hydrothermal coating of SnO2 nanocrystals and hydrothermal carbonization of glucose, respectively. When utilized as an anode material in lithium-ion batteries, the carbon-coated SnO2 nanotubes manifests markedly enhanced Li-storage capabilities in terms of specific capacity and cycling stability in comparison with bare SnO2 nanocrystals. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.