Designing and elaborating cost-efficient Pd-based electrocatalysts for direct ethanol fuel cells is thought to be a significant approach to obliterating the challenge of large-scale practical application of fuel cells. Herein, our group creates a novel class of one-dimensional (1D) PdRhTe nanotubes (NTs) by using H2PdCl4 and RhCl3 as metal precursors and Te nanowires (NWs) as the reductant and sacrificial template. Strikingly, the as-obtained PdRhTe ternary nanomaterials with a unique 1D nanotube structure display a high specific activity of 6.53 mA cm-2 and a mass activity of 2039.2 mA mg-1 for the ethanol oxidation reaction (EOR) in alkaline media, which are 1.25 (1.6) and 1.77 (8.0) times those of PdTe/C and (Pd/C), respectively. More significantly, further electrochemical measurements such as CA and successive CV confirm that the optimized PdRhTe NTs display desirable durability and negligible activity decay. Taking advantage of physicochemical characterizations and electrochemical measurements, we reasonably reveal that the outstanding electrocatalytic performances are derived from the unique geometric structure and synergistic effect. The introduction of Rh facilitates the cleavage of C-C bonds, increasing the self-stability of PdRhTe NTs. In general terms, this work should provide new orientations to synthesize cost-efficient electrocatalysts by a sacrificial template method.