<p>Thin-walled tubes play a crucial role in frame structure design and are essential for achieving automotive lightweighting. In recent years, the integration of thin-walled tube structures with multi-material layouts has garnered significant attention due to its potential to further reduce structural weight and enhance static load-bearing capacity. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the current status of multi-material structure topology optimization design, highlighting significant advancements made over the past decades. Given that multi-material structure topology optimization methods are primarily developed based on single-material approaches, four commonly used single-material topology optimization methods are first briefly introduced. Subsequently, the key numerical implementation challenges in multi-material structure topology optimization are emphasized, including material description, finite element analysis techniques, and the selection of optimization solvers. Additionally, the performance improvement strategies for multi-material structure topology optimization are discussed, such as structural topology expression, methods for describing thin-walled tube features, and issues related to optimization accuracy and efficiency. To systematically elucidate the application of multi-material structural topology optimization, the primary applications at both macro-scale and multi-scale levels are also summarized. Finally, the future research directions in multi-material structural topology optimization are forecasted. It is evident that despite extensive studies by scholars using various topology optimization methods, multi-material structural topology optimization remains a novel, dynamic, and challenging research area. This paper provides comprehensive guidance for initial investigations into multi-material structural topology optimization of thin-walled tubes used in vehicles under static loads and offers valuable insights for further research.</p>